


The Best Worst Thing (that hasn't happened to you yet)

by sara_holmes



Category: Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Do not repost, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Kidnapping, M/M, Past Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Past Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Rescue Missions, Tales of Suspense #100, Tales of Suspense Winterhawk rewrite, Unwilling Teamup
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2019-11-04 08:29:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17895044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sara_holmes/pseuds/sara_holmes
Summary: Clint Barton likes to think that in his twenty-seven years he’s grown and matured and has learned how to work effectively with a team. However, twenty-seven years is not enough time to learn to be comfortable with Bucky goddamn Barnes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is bought to you by the generosity of the wonderful [Dani Mephistopholes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/danimephistopholes/profile) who bid for a work by me in 2018's Marvel Trumps Hate auction. They asked for a rewrite of Tales of Suspense which has Bucky and Clint as exes of Natasha's. They wanted a team-up to solve a mystery & accompanying quest, and lots of misunderstandings and mutual mocking. I practically snapped her hand off to say YES because a Winterhawk Hatemance has been on my want-to-write-list for ages, and linking it to the new Tales of Suspense was a genius idea on her part. Of course, being me, I added Steve as the damsel in distress, because why not. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you to [dr.girlfriend](http://drgrlfriend.tumblr.com/) for the beta work, you are a star.

Clint Barton is not having the best morning. As far as mornings go, this is a solid C minus, firstly because he knocked one of his hearing aids off his dresser and had to go crawling under his bed to retrieve it, but mostly because the milk in his refrigerator had gone off so he had to resort to black coffee and dry cereal. Oh, and he’d also slept through his alarm and now he’s late. His own salvation is a) he hadn’t actually run out of coffee and cereal, and b) the fact it’s just a weekly meeting that he’s late for, not an actual Avengers alert.  

His phone rings, vibrating with a vengeance as he’s scrambling out of his car outside the mansion. The gravel of the sweeping driveway crunches under his sneakers and he shoves the door closed with his hip, going to the back to get his bow and quiver out. He ignores his phone, getting his equipment and jogging past the row of assembled cars, resisting the urge to knock over the motorbike that’s parked right by the front door.

His phone stops vibrating as he’s thumbing in his print and promptly starts again as he lifts his sunglasses for the retinal scan. Shit. That’s going to be either Sam, Steve, or Sharon: the holy trinity of people who are technically allowed to boss the Avengers about, AKA the few people that Clint will actually take orders from, though that’s pretty hit and miss. 

“I’m coming!” he insists, rubbing his eyes when the scan is done, the front door of the mansion opening with a thunk of machinery and locks. “Jeez, I’m like, five minutes late.”

“Welcome to Avengers Headquarters, Hawkeye,” Jarvis says coolly from the speakers that even Clint has difficulty spotting. “You are twenty-eight minutes late for the weekly team meeting.”

“Whatever,” Clint says as the door shuts behind him, but he runs down the corridor anyway, all the way past the communal kitchen and lounge, past the gym and the second staircase and down to the meeting room. His phone starts ringing  _ again _ even as he shoulders the door open, and he comes face to face with a room full of Avengers.

“So, who had twenty-eight minutes?” Tony Stark says, making a show of looking at his watch. He’s sitting back in a chair with his feet on the table, a screwdriver in each hand.

“I had thirty-two,” Natasha says from next to him. 

“Twenty-one,” Sharon says, standing at the front next to Sam, her arms folded across her chest.

“Me,” says Bruce. “I had twenty six and a half, is that closest?”

“That’s enough,” Sam says, taking his phone down from his ear and thumbing the screen. Clint’s phone stops buzzing against his thigh, which just seems to underscore Sam’s disappointment. “We have one meeting a week, Clint. Can’t you get here on time?”

“Or just not show up at all?” Barnes suggests. He’s sitting in a chair in front of Sam and Sharon, his phone held to his ear. He grins when Sharon reaches forwards to push the back of his head in gentle admonishment. “He’s still not picking up.”

Clint glares at him. “I’m here, why would I pick up?”

Barnes glares right back. “Why the fuck would I call you? I don’t care if you’re here or not,” he says, then speaks into the phone. “Hey Stevie, I know I’m only a lowly Avenger and you’re the big cheese mister SHIELD boss now, but golly I sure would appreciate it if you'd pick up your fucking phone,” he says, then hangs up.

“How come I get told off for being disrespectful and you don't?” Tony asks, sounding more intrigued than indignant. 

“It’s a Cap thing,” Barnes says, and Clint resists the urge to roll his eyes. “Once you’ve been Captain America, you get to be an asshole to the other Captain Americas. Perk of the job.”

Sam opens his mouth as if to object and then closes it and shrugs, with a clear ‘well, he’s not wrong,’ expression. Ugh. Is Clint the only Avenger who  _ hasn’t  _ had a go at being Captain America? Not that he wants to: Steve would have to die again in some terrible accident that also incapacitated Barnes, Wilson and Stark before Clint ever even considered being in line. 

Sharon would make a pretty good Cap, actually. Clint mentally adds her to the queue, ahead of him, Barnes and Stark but behind Wilson.

“Okay, then we assume that Commander Rogers is  _ still _ in Berlin,” Sharon says, with a barely controlled eye-roll that clearly screams,  _ ‘I am not micromanaging this mission because technically he’s my boss but I bet you I could have done a better job.’ _ It’s an expression she wears a lot when talking about Steve being on mission, actually. “He did say he’d not be coming back until he’d managed to get a decent deal out of the Security Council. Barnes, keep your phone on in case he calls you back. Clint, sit down.”

He looks about and curses mentally because the only free seat is next to Barnes. Great. He contemplates perching on the arm of Wanda’s chair or on the windowsill, but Barnes looks up from where he’s swapped his phone for picking at his nails with a pocketknife like some ridiculous assassin cliche. His gaze is tempered with a challenge, like he knows what Clint is thinking.

“Alright, now we’re all actually present and accounted for,” Sam says as Clint edges past Wanda and Pietro to drop into the chair next to Barnes. He swings his bow around, nearly clocking Barnes in the face as he slides it onto the table. Barnes scowls but doesn't say anything, because Sharon is already throwing up a hologram and Sam is explaining how the warehouse they’ve been surveying is in fact an AIM technology storage site.

Clint sighs, propping his head on his fist. He looks at Nat across the table, rolling his eyes. She blinks back at him, her microexpression somewhere between ‘behave’ and ‘I know.’ He offers her a tired smile and she quietly returns it before her eyes flick to Barnes. He mouths something across at her behind his hand and her mouth twitches, which is like Natasha’s version of laughing in the middle of the meeting.  

Clint re-evaluates the morning as a D. No Steve, plus Barnes being an asshole? He likes to think that in his twenty-seven years he’s grown and matured and has learned how to work effectively with a team. However, twenty-seven years is  _ not  _ enough time to learn to be comfortable with Barnes flirting with Natasha right under his nose. Barnes had his chance with Nat fifty years ago. He needs to move the fuck on.

He pays zero attention to the rest of the meeting - something he’ll undoubtedly get chewed out over later, seeing as Sam is channeling full Steve today - and leaves the moment he’s allowed. He’s gonna go back to his apartment and go back to bed. Maybe play some Crash Bandicoot on his Playstation that’s held together with duct tape and a prayer.

“I don’t see why you won’t move in,” a voice rings out behind him as he’s trying to tap in his code to get out of the front door. “Then you wouldn’t be late for every meeting.”

Clint huffs out a laugh, turning to face Sharon. “I told you. If someone attacks the Mansion, you need Avengers to be not living here so they can come and rescue you.”

“Your apartment isn’t secure,” she says.

“Then you guys can come and rescue me if anything happens,” he says, grinning at her. “I make a real cute damsel in distress.” 

She just stares at him, arms folded across her chest. Ugh, Sam would have laughed. Even Steve would have smiled a little. Sharon is just no fun some days. 

He sighs. “Is there something you wanted or are you just here to tell me that you’re not mad, just disappointed?”

“If Steve isn’t back in two days, I want you to go and extract the SHIELD support team,” she says without preamble.

Clint frowns. “Can you actually tell me what to do? I know we all kind of joke about it, but is that officially allowed?”

“Hawkeye,” Sharon says with the air of someone who doesn't really like children trying to explain something to a toddler. “As a SHIELD-sanctioned team, the Avengers technically fall under ultimate command of SHIELD. As your SHIELD liaison I have the authority to request members of the Avengers - technically a specialised SHIELD team - to assist on SHIELD missions. I am asking you to go and extract a SHIELD team in forty-eight hours’ time. Captain Wilson, your CO, has signed off on the mission.” 

Ugh, if Cap has signed off on the mission then there’s no avoiding it. And if Sharon has already gone and asked Cap for permission then this means it's serious because she's made sure Clint can't wiggle out of it. And… that seems like a  _ lot _ of effort to go to for the three agents that Steve has with him in Berlin. 

Clint takes a moment to think, slowly putting the pieces together.

“So if you've got enough rank to shanghai me for a mission, does that mean you have enough rank to extract the Commander of SHIELD from an overrunning mission?”

“Don’t start acting smart,” she says tightly. Wow, maybe she is actually worried about Steve and not just annoyed at him. 

Clint grins. Man he loves it when he manages to figure out the spy games. “You’re not technically allowed to extract Steve, are you? So you’re sending me to get the support team but it really means I’m going to get him.”

Sharon presses her lips together hard. “If anyone asks-”

“I know nothing and I’m going to extract the SHIELD team,” Clint says, and mock salutes her. “Yes, boss.”

“Can you please not be a smartass for once?”

“Not liking the odds,” Clint says, then something occurs to him. “Hey, why did you ask me? Why not Barnes?”

It’s meant to be a casual question but he thinks it might have come out a little bitter, the way Sharon looks at him. “Because Steve will be pissed off that I’ve interfered and you’re the only one who will outstubborn him,” she says. “Barnes would go with every intention of extracting the support team-”

“But Steve would bat his eyelashes and get his own way, gottit,” Clint says. “Why don’t you go? He listens to you.”

Sharon sighs. “Were you not at that meeting? We’ve got an AIM facility to shut down and a bioweapon to track, contain and neutralise. It’s going to take the Avengers and some serious SHIELD personnel, which means I have to get someone to assemble a STRIKE team who can actually liaise with the Avengers on short notice, and that’s on top of sorting Cap out a new photonic shield because he broke the last one-”

“Okay, I get it, I’m sorry,” he says, because Sharon is looking harried and Clint knows she’ll run herself into the ground to get a mission done properly. Steve being away for so long is probably making it worse.

“Two days,” she says, then looks at her phone as it starts to beep. She nods at Clint then walks away, answering the phone as she does. “Director Hill, yes. Yes, the Avengers have been briefed-”

He finally gets his code in correctly and ducks outside the moment the heavy oak doors are unlocked, trudging over to his car. The mansion looms behind him, the countless windows staring him out like so many judgemental eyes. He slams the door behind him and is about to drive off when he sees the other non-resident Avengers leave the building; Barnes and Nat walk out side by side. Clint’s grip on the steering wheel tightens as he watches them, noticing how close they stand as they chat, the way Nat leans in to kiss Barnes’ cheek before he straddles his stupid motorbike. It’s Barnes’ smile that really gets to him though, that roguish grin that makes him look undeniably handsome. It’s the only time he does look vaguely good, Clint thinks uncharitably. The rest of the time he looks like an angry wet cat with greasy hair. No, actually, that’s unfair to cats-

Clint stops trying to compare Barnes to unfortunate bedraggled animals as the man in question pulls on his helmet and drives away. Feeling petty, he gives Barnes the finger and then winces as Nat looks right at him and catches him doing it.

“Great,” he mutters as she looks around and then starts walking towards him. She climbs into the passenger seat and just raises an eyebrow at him. 

“I’m going home to go to bed,” he says. “Are you joining me?”

She ignores him. “IHOP. Cheap breakfast foods to go, right now.”

“Nat,” he groans.

“Now,” she says. “You swear at me, you buy me breakfast.”

“I wasn’t swearing at you, I was swearing at Barnes.”

Nat sighs, pulls her sunglasses on. “You know that you two would get on if you stopped hating each other for literally no reason.”

“I have my reasons,” Clint says, and then concedes and turns the ignition, mostly because he doesn’t want Nat to start talking about how great Barnes is. “Alright your majesty, IHOP it is.”

  
  


* * *

 

“He just gives me shit every opportunity he can,” Clint says, spearing a blueberry with his fork. “Like even if I’ve not said anything-”

“You do the same to him,” Nat says, sounding bored. They’re actually in IHOP for once instead of going through the drive-through, though Clint has to admit it’s not the worst place in the world. The staff seem so unflappable in that working-for-a-chain-corporation way that they aren’t bothered by the presence of two Avengers all. Maybe they’ve just not been recognised; Nat has that quality where no-one ever seems to be able to say for certain that she’s the Black Window, and Clint just doesn’t get recognised, ever.   

“I do not,” Clint argues.

Nat sips at her coffee. “Believe it or not, I didn’t bring you to breakfast so you could bitch about James.”

“I’m paying, you didn’t bring me anywhere.”

“I bought you here so I could ask why Sharon wanted you.”

Clint frowns. “You don’t already know?”

“Oh I know. I just want to see if you know the same things that I know.”

“Nat, could you maybe not be quite so obvious that you’re tapping me for information? Christ, a little prep would go a long way before you go ahead and fuck me.”

She looks mildly impressed. “Nice metaphor,” she says.  “But I’m not trying to get you in trouble or hurt. I’m curious.”

“I don’t think you’re  _ trying _ to get me in trouble, it just happens,” he grumbles, shoving more pancake in his mouth. It’s mostly because he’s hungry but he’s learned over the years that gross table manners are a surefire way to distract someone from the fact he’s not telling the whole truth. “I gotta go fetch Sharon’s team back from Berlin.”

Nat looks at him with mild distaste, then nods. “That’s what I heard,” she says, then glances at her phone. “I’ve got to go, I’m meeting James for lunch.”

Clint scowls as she slides out of the booth. “Cold, Nat.”

“A girl’s gotta eat,” she says, and leans over and kisses his cheek. “Be good.”

“Tell Barnes I said fuck you,” Clint says as she heads out, which does nothing but get him reproving looks from the old couple at the next table over. Great. He knew he should have just gone home and gone to bed: today officially fails and it’s not even eleven.

  
  


* * *

 

Forty-five hours later and Clint finds himself somewhere he didn’t actually think he’d end up: in the middle of a bustling SHIELD hangar, strapped into the cockpit of a quinjet and plotting in a flight path to Berlin. Sharon is standing behind him, leaning on the empty co-pilot’s chair and going over the mission briefing again.

“I got it, Sharon,” Clint says. “I’m not actually an idiot, most of the time.”

“I know,” she says. “I’m just.” She doesn’t finish and Clint can only guess at what the rest of the sentence would be. Worried? Annoyed? Maybe both? Clint’s not worried at all; if any other team member had gone over on a mission and hadn’t picked up the phone in three days then yeah, but this is  _ Steve _ . Steve is literally in charge of SHIELD and the Avengers by proxy, and tends to operate on a ‘I’m in charge, I do what I want,’ sort of policy. At least he’s honest about it. Clint swears if it weren’t for Maria Hill being second in command, Steve would have no hope of running SHIELD like an intelligence agency as opposed to an army. 

“Here,” she says, and hands him a pager. “Check in when you land and when you make contact with the team.”

“With the team, or the team?” Clint asks, adding air quotes around the second option. 

“Both,” she says. “I’m betting he’s gotten annoyed with his SHIELD detail and ditched them for some reason.”

“Are they not picking up either?”

“No,” Sharon says. “But if Commander Rogers has told them to go off the grid, they’ll have done that.” 

“Remarkably clandestine for Steve.”

“Remarkable that you used that word correctly.”

“Whatever,” Clint says, flipping switches to charge the engines. “Okay, you better hop off. I’m taking off in five, gonna go clandestine the hell out of Berlin.”

Sharon closes her eyes for a second, then just shakes her head and climbs out of the jet. He bites down on a grin, focussing on getting the jet fired up. In front of him, SHIELD ground crew are waving batons on at him like he actually needs their help. Whatever, if they don’t move out of the way, that’s on them.

It feels good to be on mission, he thinks as the engines roar to life, rumbling steady underneath him. He can prove to Sharon that he’s competent, go and find Steve  _ and _ get out of the way of Nat and Barnes for a while. And he might even stop off for a currywurst or three while in Berlin. That’s wins all around. 

  
  


* * *

 

And of course,  _ nothing _ goes to plan. 

He gets to Berlin and immediately has a standoff with the German equivalent of SHIELD who want him to fill in insane amounts of paperwork and hand over his weapons for inspection. He dodges 99% of the paperwork by pulling Avenger rank and makes it very clear that  _ no one _ touches his bow. After that, he steps out into the sweltering heat of Berlin in mid-June and realises he’s left his goddamn sunglasses on the quinjet, and retrieving them would mean more paperwork and arguing. 

On top of all that, he quickly finds that there is absolutely zero trace of Steve or the support team. He checks all of the safehouses and designated meeting points that Sharon told him were on Steve’s mission itinerary and comes up with squat. One of the designated SHIELD hotel rooms looks like it’s had someone in recently- sheets out of place, used towel in the bottom of the bath, glasses of half drunk water on the side, but the air inside feels stale and the water has flecks of dust swimming around on top.

He’s got a bad feeling about this.

Bad feeling or not, he doesn’t want to call Sharon or Sam or anyone until he’s definitely sure Steve is missing. Insead, he doubles back into the centre of the city, mingling with the tourists and maybe stopping to buy ice cream, then calls Nat. She picks up just as he’s trying to calculate the time difference, wondering if he’ll have pissed her off by calling her at 3am or something. Ugh. Math.

“Hello, Clint,” she says, and to his relief she doesn’t sound pissed off at all. In fact, she sounds quite happy to hear from him and that does his ego the world of good. He’s not exactly missed her since their breakfast date but it’s always nice to be wanted. 

“Nat!” he says, trying to lick melting vanilla-raspberry off his knuckles. “I need an excuse to go into WSC headquarters.”

“Why?”

“A hunch,” he says, stepping neatly out of the way of a bicycle, looking across to the nearest U-Bahn station. “I just need to get into the building to maybe not scan the personnel lists.”

There’s a beat of silence. “Go in and ask to have the most up-to-date approved Avengers’ flight paths. They can only be collected in person and you’ve got authority to ask for them. Just say that you landed in Berlin because you had an issue with the quinjet that Stark is fixing remotely and you want to check routes home. Tell them you’re six hours overdue already and you’re trying to find a shortcut before you get in any more trouble, they’ll believe that of you.”

“You’re brilliant, did I ever tell you that?”  

“Several times,” she says, and he can hear the smile in her voice. “It bears repeating though.”

He can’t help but smile back. This is so achingly familiar and just  _ them _ . The easy banter, the teasing. It makes him yearn for the days where the banter and teasing were a prelude to  _ more _ . He takes a deep breath. “Nat,” he begins and then stops dead because he can hear another voice on Nat’s end of the line, a depressingly familiar deep-rough voice asking her if she wants another glass of wine.

His smile vanishes and he stops right in the middle of the street, causing someone to bump into his back. “Are you with Barnes right now?” he asks incredulously, mouthing ‘sorry’ at the person who he collided with then wincing because come on, he knows what that is in German. He could at least make an effort not to be an complete asshole tourist. 

“Clint,” she sighs. 

“No,” he says. “You’re better than that asshole. Jesus, Nat. You’re driving me crazy.”

“You have no say in who I hang out with,” she says.

“Oh yeah. Hanging out, is that what the kids call it?”

“Stop acting like a child,” she says. “World Security Council, Clint. You’re on mission.”

And she hangs up on him. Clint is left in the middle of a Berlin street, gaping at his phone. His annoyance at Barnes is coalescing into a nasty sick hatred, right in the pit of his gut. Honestly, Clint’s life would be a thousand percent easier if Steve had never rescued Barnes. Well, maybe he could have rescued him from Hydra, Clint isn’t a monster, but maybe Steve should have held off on realigning Barnes’ brain by smashing a cosmic cube into his face. Clint’s problems pretty much started the moment that bastard got his memories back.

He shoves the thought away, knowing distantly that it’s easier to just hate Barnes than really think about why. Anyway, Nat’s right. He’s on mission, which means he needs to finish his ice cream, get a train across the city and then bullshit a meeting with the WSC.

He proves he can multitask by simultaneously demolishing the rest of his ice cream  _ and _ using his phone to ping the WSC with his location, giving them a heads-up that he’s in the vicinity. They tend to get pissy when Avengers turn up unannounced and Clint is showing up after they’ve hosted Commander Rogers for a week, and even if Commander Rogers is a goddamn professional, his soft spot for the Avengers is a mile wide and it frustrates the powers that be endlessly. 

Clint still wishes that he’d been in the meeting where the WSC had been told that Fury’s replacement would be Steve goddamn Rogers. He bets there was tears.

He mentally shakes himself to get his head back in the game. Nat was right about one thing; he’s on mission and he has a feeling that if he doesn’t track down Steve goddamn Rogers soon, there will be more than tears.

 

* * *

 

He moseys around and acts like a tourist by buying more ice cream and taking blurry cellphone photos of the Brandenburg gate until he gets a call from the WSC a few hours later, requesting that he confirm his position in Berlin. Nosey bastards. He plays along though, acting like he’s fucked up and is in dire need of their help. They go through the predictable stages of the disinterested ‘you are SHIELD’s problem, not ours’ to a smug ‘well we suppose, if you ask nicely,’ to a impatient ‘oh for god’s sake who let Hawkeye out unattended again, come and get your goddamn flight plans.’

They tell him they can’t possibly find anyone to meet him until tomorrow morning, which he argues about and then accepts, figuring that he can use the remaining time to do some digging of his own. Hopefully he’ll be able to find a lead on Cap - dammit, Commander Rogers - before he has to even step foot in the WSC. 

By the time the next morning rolls around, he’s slept for four hours and is starting to get concerned. Locals say that they saw Rogers leaving the WSC building days ago, and there’s Instagram proof to back the story up. The hotel remains undisturbed and none of the Avengers or SHIELD frequencies have been used within the city. 

Resigned to having to deal with bureaucracy, he heads into the WSC with an ‘oops I fucked up’ attitude and a lot of charm. He’s not above using flirting to get what he wants - it’s only when he’s actually trying to flirt that things tend to go disastrously wrong. As it stands, whatever he does manages to get him clearance to enter the building with his phone, and the phone number of the agent manning the front desk, which isn’t half bad. He might even call the number if he manages to get this mess with Steve sorted in the next six hours.

“Here you are,” says the agent who has been assigned to deal with him, handing over a memory stick. They’re fresh faced and eager to please which suits Clint perfectly. Trying to get information out of an actual ranking WSC member would be hell. 

“Thanks,” Clint says. “Hey, is Cap in the building today? I mean, Commander Rogers? Sorry, I still can’t get used to him being the boss. He’s still an Avenger in my head.”

The agent shakes his head. “No, the meetings concluded on Friday, did you not know?”

“Kid, I’m just a guy with a bow and arrow, no-one tells me anything,” Clint says, and the agent nods. Clint’d be slightly insulted that everyone finds it so easy to accept the fact he has no idea what is going on, but right now it’s getting him everything he wants. “Aw bro, have I really missed him?”

“All the delegates were gone by Friday afternoon except the British,” says the agent. “Though that is information in the public domain.”

Either he’s trying to cover his back for telling Clint too much or he’s suspicious of how little Clint appears to know. Clint barks out a laugh and pulls out his phone, that for all intents and purposes looks like a drug-dealer flip phone. “You think I get twitter on this thing?” he says. “I’ll get a smartphone when I stop losing things.”

“Of course,” says the agent. “Now Mister Hawkeye, if the flight paths are all you need, we will get you signed out?”

“Sure,” Clint says amiably and lets himself be steered out of the building. The moment he’s clear, he uses his not-exactly-a-drug-dealer-flip-phone and checks the Stark-built tracker program which has been running since he entered the building. Every person in a hundred yard radius who can be identified comes up in a neat, tidy, and very illegal list, but there are some glaring omissions from the register. Namely, Steve’s support team

Blowing out a frustrated breath, he admits defeat and calls Sharon on a secure channel. 

“This is Agent Thirteen acknowledging Hawkeye. Why are you not using your pager? You know what, never mind. Status report.”

“Oh hi babe,” he says, easy and casual the way Nat taught him, mindful that’s he’s on a crowded street. “Where did you say to meet the guys again? I went and no-one turned up.”

“No-one?” Sharon repeats.

“No, like I checked their hotel and it looks like they already left. So I went to the bar and the bar staff said they’d left a while ago.”

“Shit,” Sharon says, and Clint feels the bottom drop out of his stomach. “ _ Shit _ .”

“You’re telling me you have no idea where they are?”

“No,” she says, regaining some of her professionalism. “As of now, Commander Rogers and the team are MIA.”

“Shit,” Clint echoes. “What do you want me to do?”

“Get home,” she says immediately. “If someone has managed to - if the situation is what we think it is then-”

He feels it first; a prickle up the back of his spine that usually means that someone is watching. Resisting the urge to spin on the spot, he wanders towards the S-Bahn station entrance, pretending to check the timetable. 

“I could stay here and look some more,” he says, looking up. “There’s got to be some trace-”

“No, I think,” Sharon begins, but she doesn’t sound sure. “I think we should brief everyone.”

Clint’s hearing aids may be Starktech but they’re not always great at hearing layering in sound, which is why he jumps a mile when someone appears right goddamn next to him. He twists around reflexively but when a leather-gloved hand catches his wrist, he thinks maybe it’s less the fault of the hearing aids and more the fact that Bucky goddamn Barnes can sneak up on anyone, even wearing combat boots. 

Clint’s mouth drops open. “What the  _ fuck  _ are you doing here?!”

“Looking for a friend,” Bucky says, giving the phone a glare. “What are  _ you  _ doing here? Who are you talking to?”

Clint shoves him away, bringing the phone back to his ear and interrupting Sharon’s urgent requests for sitrep. “Wanna tell me why Barnes is here?”

There’s a long silence.

“Put him on the line,” Sharon says. 

Clint holds out the phone to Barnes who shakes his head. Clint steps forwards, and uses the extra four inches of height he has on Barnes to look down at him, hoping Barnes understands just how pissed off he is. Holding his ground and lifting his chin in a way that is half defiant, half obnoxious, Barnes relents and takes the phone. Clint notices the way his shoulders hunch slightly as he speaks to Sharon, looking down at the floor and kicking his toes against the ground. It’s like he’s upset about being told off and that makes no sense - Barnes doesn’t give a damn about anything.

“No, I didn’t - he texted me back and it didn’t feel right,” Barnes is saying. Insisting, really. “I didn’t know how much was compromised so I thought-” he stops, mouth turning down unhappily. “I know I’m meant to be in New York, but - Okay. No. Fine.” He snaps the phone closed and hands it back to Clint. 

“I wasn't done talking to her!”   


“We’ve got forty-eight hours to find out what we can,” Barnes says, utterly ignoring the fact he just hung up on Clint’s phonecall, which is just rude. “Then we’ve got to report back if we still can’t find anything.” 

“Why are you even here?” Clint demands. “This is my mission.”

Barnes looks around them then jerks his chin in an indication that they should start walking. Clint falls into step, though he is really tempted to just about turn and march in the other direction.

“I got a text,” Bucky says, “from Steve. It didn’t look right, it didn't sound right. I think someone else has his cell and is trying to throw us off. Make it look like he’s okay.”

“What did it say?”

Barnes doesn't answer.

“ _ Barnes _ . What did it say?”

“It said he was just finishing up with some extra meetings in Berlin and I shouldn't worry.”

Clint stops dead. There’s an alarmed ringing right behind him and a cyclist has to swerve around him, cursing him in very angry German. “That’s it?”

Bucky’s jaw clenches as he grabs Clint’s elbow and makes him move again. “Yes.”

“And from that, you got ‘Steve is in trouble’?”

“Well you can’t find him either,” Bucky snaps, and steers them right into a coffee shop. He points at a small vacant table in the corner and then stalks up to the counter without looking back. Clint thinks again about just walking off but finds himself sitting down at the tiny table, waiting for Bucky to come back. 

Which he does. With only one coffee.

“You asshole,” Clint says. Bucky just stares at him, cracking the lid off of his to-go cup and sipping his drink with a complete deadass expression in place. “Asshole,” Clint reiterates, and hauls himself up to go and order his own.  

He makes sure to knock his elbow right into the side of Barnes’ head as he swings back down into his seat. He half expects to be sucker-punched with a metal fist but Barnes just murder-eyes him some more. Clint bets that if he’d tried that a few years ago - before Steve’s quasi-dying wish forced Barnes to be a team player - Barnes would have gutted him like a fish. Or tried to anyway.

“So, my data points to Steve being missing, because I’ve looked for him and can’t find him,” Clint says. “Why is your evidence any use at all?”

“Because Steve has been my CO since 1943,” Bucky begins-

“Apart from that time you were controlled by Hydra. Or pretending to be Cap because we all thought actual Cap was dead. Whatever.”

Bucky’s expression darkens even further, and his nostrils flare as he very deliberately takes a deep breath to calm down. “The point is, I know that if Steve was genuinely busy and I’d been blowing up his phone, he’d call me and tell me to quit it,” Bucky says. “He’d tear me a new one for bugging him.”

Clint pauses. “You think?”

Bucky nods. “Oh yeah. I used to do it on purpose, some times. Look, I know you don’t like me. I don’t like you. But Steve is my best friend and there’s something wrong and I’m going to find out.”

“Best friend?” Clint says. “How many times have you tried to kill him?”

Bucky leans back, looking disgusted. “You just can't quit it, can you?”

“No, because even if you are best friends, it sounds like you’re here without clearance or a decent plan other than a hunch,” Clint says, and is satisfied to see a dull flush stain Barnes’ cheekbones. “You’re half-cocked and you’re going to get someone hurt.”

Bucky’s jaw clenches. “You’re the one who hasn’t got enough common sense to work out a mission on your own. Face it, without Natasha your success rate is less than impressive.”

“Fuck you,” Clint snaps. He’s tempted to throw his coffee in Barnes’ face but honestly he’s tired and has got a killer headache coming and needs the caffeine before he starts shaking. Instead, he snatches up the cup and pretends to be the bigger person, pointedly giving Barnes the finger before walking away.

He’s not sure if Barnes calls out after him, but he decides it doesn’t matter because even if Barnes had called him he’d have walked off anyway. He doesn’t care if Barnes has a freaking hundred years of experience, he doesn’t care if Barnes has been Steve’s sidekick since 1943. Hell, he doesn’t care that Barnes has been Captain America. Clint can do just fine without any of that, and without Barnes’ goddamn baggage.

He regroups, going to get more ice cream before going back to the abandoned hotel. He rages while playing tetris on his phone, and then when the battery dies he pulls himself together and decides to be a professional Avenger-agent and look back over the paperwork that Sharon gave him.

He reads the first page about eight times without taking in any of the words. 

“Aw, paperwork,” he groans, sliding down the couch until he’s mostly on the floor. He casts a forlorn look at his phone that’s charging over on the nightstand, wonders what Barnes is doing. Maybe he’s still in the coffee shop. Maybe he’s off shooting things. Maybe he’s used his creepy Winter Soldier senses and has found Steve already. Oh man, Barnes is going to find Steve and Natasha will be all happy and Clint will be the loser who can’t even get past level twelve on Tetris.

Ugh, why is he even thinking about Barnes, when he doesn’t even care about Barnes. How come Barnes has managed to get under his skin by calling him an idiot? That insult would never usually bother him, because he’s used to people underestimating him. Hell, he actively encourages people to underestimate him; he still gets away without having to formally check his bow at SHIELD because he deliberately messed up the paperwork every time he was asked to do it. It must just be Barnes throwing Natasha’s name out there that’s got him all bent out of shape.

 

* * *

  
  


After a few solid minutes of moping, he pulls himself together again, banishing all thoughts of Barnes before getting back down to business. He goes over the mission briefings again and manages to get past the first page this time, trying to spot anything that could be amiss. He can't find anything so gives up, instead calling Sharon and asking her to send him the suspicious activity logs for Berlin. She bitches at him for asking, because it means she has to request the files from the WSC, but then says she’s managed to call in a favour and get them off-record anyway, so Clint doesn’t get why she’s complaining.

Either way, he gets what he wants: a few locations linked tenuously to Hydra that might be worth checking out. It could easily be a dead end, but it could be somewhere Steve has been taken, or has decided to check out himself. 

He has a nap, goes out to get dinner and then sets off as dusk is creeping over the city, purpling the sky. Berlin is like New York, a city that never sleeps; it doesn’t seem to get much quieter by night at all. 

His first two stops come up with nothing: one is an empty apartment that looks like it was cleared out months ago, and one is a techno-club that apparently only closes for three hours every Sunday. After a little recon, Clint admits that he can’t get into the offices on a whim because of the huge security guards and amount of security cameras, so has a drink, allows himself to be eyed up by a twink wearing excessive amounts of eyeliner, then leaves. Pity, really. He seems to be on a winning streak as far as people hitting on him goes, and he curses the fact he’s working. Maybe he’ll come back to Berlin when this mess is all over.

He heads out of the club into the warm evening air, catching a train out to his last port of call. Man, say what you like about Europe but the public transport here is amazing. Back in the states, once you’re out of New York you’re kinda screwed, left for dead in some godforsaken public-transport void. 

It’s close to midnight when he arrives at his final destination: a warehouse in an industrial complex. It’s apparently empty but is listed as a financial address for some characters of interest, so the WSC are keeping an eye on it. He knows the British MI:13 team are interested too, so he’s gonna have to be super secretive to make sure he doesn’t draw the attention of a super-powered James Bond or anything. So, in true clandestine style, he hops the fence and sneaks in.

Once he’s in, he finds nothing but an empty warehouse filled with dust. He’s disappointed; he was at least hoping for some Hydra agents to beat up. Or Steve to be there, sitting atop a pile of unconscious Hydra agents, looking annoyed that Clint has muscled in on his one-man incursion against Hydra. 

There’s nothing. Not so much as a bootprint. 

He edges further into the warehouse, eyes on a rusted shipping container that’s against the back wall. Everything looks grey in the scant light offered by the moon, but he’s not worried. His night vision is pretty good, not that he ever publicises the fact. Some villains think that turning the lights off is a sure fire way to incapacitate him and he’s happy for them to keep on believing that.

He takes another step and then freezes as he spots something, the faintest shift of a shadow in the darkness. He reaches behind him to grab an arrow out of his quiver, nocking it and pulling his bow to full draw, waiting.

Again, something shifts. He holds his breath, trying to listen even though he knows that his ears are practically useless in situations like these. 

This time the shift is more definite; a humanoid shape moving in the darkness by the container.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he murmurs. He stays very still, moving his upper body slightly to aim at the movement. The only reason he hasn’t fired already is that he knows he’ll be in trouble if he accidentally shoots James Bond- 

“Put that fucking thing away before you hurt yourself.”

Clint lowers his bow in disbelief as the shadow speaks, moves and morphs into not James Bond but James fucking Barnes. He’s dressed entirely in black and has a pistol with a silencer in hand.

“Oh for fucks sake,” Clint says. “I’d ask what the fuck you’re doing here but the answer is clearly lurking about in the dark and getting in my fucking way. You’re not even supposed to be here, Barnes.”

“I’m following up leads,” Bucky says, sounding tired. “How did you know this place was here?”

“It’s on the WSC suspicious activity list,” Clint says, shoving the arrow back in his quiver as Barnes walked closer. “I checked a few out but still no sign of Cap.”

“Commander Rogers,” Bucky corrects.

Clint gives him a look. “He’s Cap and you know it.”

“Wilson is Cap,” Bucky says, rapidly losing his temper. “Christ, what is this? You defending Steve’s honour or something? Because I tell you, he don’t need it.”

“No, I’m saying that he’s the real Cap and it’s dumb to pretend that anyone else is good enough.”

He expects Bucky to snap back. He doesn’t expect Bucky’s metal fist to shoot out and grab his shirt, yanking him forward so they’re nose to nose.

“You make one more crack about me not being good enough to be Cap. I dare you.”

“Well you’re not,” Clint says. “Get your fucking hands off of me.”

“I should beat the snot outta you,” Bucky says, low and dangerous. “But to be honest, it ain’t worth the pathetic amount of effort it’d take me to do.”

He shoves Clint away from him, hard enough so that Clint stumbles a couple of steps. He sneers at him in the dark before turning away, and Clint sees red. Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s lifting his bow and swinging it, hard.

It cracks Barnes across the back of the head hard enough to send him staggering to the floor. Clint tosses his bow aside and follows him down, kneeing him hard in the back. Barnes grunts in pain and twists around, catching Clint in the mouth with an elbow. He reels back, tasting blood, retaliating by punching Barnes in the face as hard as he can.

“You fucking maniac,” Barnes spits, grabbing Clint by the neck and forcing him down onto his back, trying to block Clint’s kicking. “You think you can beat me?”

“In any way that counts,” Clint bites out.

“I could kill you,” Bucky says, tightening his fingers. “Right now. And that would serve you right.”

“Do it,” Clint replies, lifting his head and baring blood-stained teeth at Barnes. “Prove me right.”

Bucky makes a disgusted noise and lets go of him, climbing to his feet and rubbing at the back of his head, checking his fingers for blood. 

Clint sits up, throat aching. “Steve’d be real proud of you right now.”

“You hit me!” Bucky snarls, whirling back around. “And stop pretending you know what Steve’d think, you’re barely a colleague.”

“Least I never tried to-” Cint begins, but is distracted by his phone buzzing in his pocket. He pulls it out, sees Sharon’s name on the ID. Fuck. That’s not one he can ignore.

He flips the phone open. “Barton.” 

“Clint, please tell me you’re with Bucky.”

Clint scowls, watching Bucky walking away. He’s got a good mind to go after him and hit him again.

“Yeah. Unfortunately.”

“Good. I need you both to come in. Steve’s officially been kidnapped.”

“What?” Clint says, the words hitting like a dull blow. “Barnes, wait,” he calls to Bucky’s retreating back before turning his attention back to Sharon. “How do you know?”

“Natasha has a source,”  Sharon says tightly. Clint curses, and Barnes turns back towards him, expression inscrutable. 

“What is it?” he asks.

“Natasha has a source, says Steve is definitely kidnapped,” Clint says, and Bucky’s face goes pale under the red of the blood that’s still dripping from his nose.

“We don’t know who or what yet, but I want you and Barnes back stateside,” Sharon says. “Is he there? Put me on speaker.”

Clint does, and Sharon’s voice fills the space between him and Barnes. “Barnes, did you take a quinjet? It’s not been logged as leaving or arriving anywhere.”

Bucky blows out a breath. “I disabled the trackers,” he admits.

“You are a liability,” Sharon snaps and Barnes looks away from the phone. “Get back here, both of you. Clint, leave the jet you came in there and come back with Barnes.”

“No,” Clint protests. “I’ll take my own jet, thanks.”

“It will take you hours to get the jet cleared for takeoff and we do not have the time,” Sharon snaps. “I do not have the time for you two fucking around or bickering. Get back here now, and that’s an order.”

“Acknowledged,” Barnes says tonelessly. “We’ll be airborne in sixty minutes.”

“Good,” Sharon says and hangs up.

The silence weighs heavy between them, motionless in the dark. Clint moves first, reaching up to wipe his bleeding lip on his sleeve. The atmosphere between them feels brittle, like one wrong move could make it snap again.

“I’m not sorry for hitting you,” Clint says. “But I’m willing to call a truce while Steve’s in trouble.”

“Steve comes first,” Bucky says, which Clint takes as agreement. “Get up. We’ve got to make time if we want to get back at a reasonable hour.”

Clint clambers to his feet, picking up his bow. Barnes looks at him and for a moment it feels like he’s going to say something, but then he he just shakes his head and walks away, leaving Clint with little choice but to follow. 

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, credit for this gem of an idea goes to [Dani Mephistopholes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/danimephistopholes/profile)! 
> 
> Huge thanks to [dr.girlfriend](http://drgrlfriend.tumblr.com/) for the beta work - I'm sorry that I apparently forgot how hyphens work.

The flight home is unbearably awkward, at least for Clint. When the adrenaline and anger fades, he starts to feel really guilty. He’s in the tiny bathroom, trying to carefully place some narrow butterfly bandages over the cut that runs from his lip down his chin. It’s split open like a goddamn peach, which is probably what he should have expected from winding up someone with a vibranium arm. He’s willing to bet that it wouldn’t be half as bad if Barnes had caught him with his human elbow. 

He washes the few errant drops of blood down the sink, the water running pink before it goes clear. Maybe he kind of deserved it, really. He hit Barnes with his bow, and no matter which way he looks at it, that’s seriously violent. God,  _ he’d _ made a crack at Barnes about disappointing Steve, but in his gut he knows Steve would be horrified at what Clint did back there.

He glances at himself in the polished steel that serves as a mirror before looking away and ducking out of the bathroom. The jet dips and sways beneath his feet and he feels a flare of annoyance, wishing he could blame Barnes but knowing the fault is with turbulence and the autopilot. 

Barnes is sitting in the pilot’s seat, elbow on the armrest and head resting on his fist. He’s taken his gloves off and the metal of his knuckles shines dully in the light from the instrument panels. Even in the low blueish glow, Clint can see that he’s got a pretty epic black eye. It’ll probably heal in hours, but still. Clint did that and he doesn’t know if he feels smug or bad about it.

He slides into the copilot’s seat, reaching out to fiddle with one of the stabilizer controls. Bucky sends him an exasperated look but doesn’t comment.

“You think Steve is really in trouble?” Clint asks.

“Dunno,” Bucky says, back to staring straight ahead. “How the fuck should I know?”

Clint huffs, annoyed. “Why are you like this? Why are you so fucking sullen all the time?”

“Might be the years of brainwashing and torture,” Bucky replies. “Maybe the fact I was trained from the age of eleven to be a killer. Maybe it’s because I’ve been on this planet for a hundred years and watched most of my friends and family grow old and die.” He rolls his head to look at Clint. “Or maybe it’s just that I don’t like you.”

“I’ll go with the brainwashing thing,” Clint says. “Most people think I’m great, so it can’t be me.”

He sees Bucky’s nostrils flare as he deliberately takes a deep breath, presumably to stop him punching Clint again. “Look, even discounting our...disagreement, I am having a spectacularly shit day. My best friend is missing, my boss is going to ring me in for disobeying direct orders...could you just give it a break?”

And Clint isn’t a monster, so he nods. “Sure,” he says. “Wanna talk about the Steve thing? Who do you think Nat’s source is?”

“Natasha doesn’t tell me her sources,” Bucky says, which Clint doesn't believe for a second. He's about to call Barnes out on it but apparently the whack around the head has knocked conversational skills loose because Barnes _carries on talking_ , like he and Clint are people who chat. “Fuck. This would be easier if Steve had agreed to wear a tracker, the moron.”

“I thought he did?” Clint says, surprised. “The new set that Tony made?”

“Yeah, I tried that, and found it stuck to Stark’s desk,” Bucky says, and Clint has to stifle a laugh because even though Steve might be MIA, that’s classic.

“Not funny,” Barnes grouches. “If he’d agreed to the damn thing we’d have found him by now. When we get him back I’m gonna sew one to the inside of his ass.”

“Wow, that’s a mental image I didn’t need,” Clint says. “Thanks for that.”

“You’re welcome,” Bucky says tonelessly. 

Clint stares at the controls a little longer. “Hey.”

“What.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I hit you with my bow. That was uncalled for.”

Bucky rolls his head again, pale eyes finding Clint and resting there for a moment. “Yeah, it was,” he says. “For the record, I wouldn’t have really killed you.”

“Good to know.” 

Bucky nods curtly and that’s that - conversation over. But Clint can concede, as he slumps back into his chair and watches the autopilot readings shine blue on the console, that the fact they’ve even managed a conversation without violence is a miracle in itself.

  
  


* * *

 

Clint and Bucky are both late for the emergency Avengers meeting this time round. By the time they get to the mansion, Bucky is back to sniping and scowling and Clint is sorely tempted to either hit him again or lock him outside. His tiredness outweighs the urges to slap Barnes upside the head and he just settles on a lot of eye-rolling and one muttered, “Will you calm the fuck down already?”

Maria Hill meets them at the door. She looks them up and down, taking in Clint’s split lip and Barnes’ not-quite-healed black eye, opens her mouth, then closes it again. “I don’t want to know,” she says, lips pinched thin. “Come on. You’re late.”

“My fault,” Barton says. “Barnes is just guilty by association.”

The whole team is there when he shoulders into the meeting room; it is  _ packed _ . The sort of packed that is gonna make Barnes’ bad mood even worse. Phil Coulson is standing by the door like he's a bouncer, which is a cause for alarm bells seeing as SHIELD never send agents over anymore, preferring to leave the Avengers to Sharon; Stark, Rhodes, Wanda, Pietro and Natasha are sat around the table; Banner and Drew are leaning back against the wall, both with mugs in hand; Parker is somehow sat  _ on  _ the windowsill next to them and Sam and Sharon are standing at the front, heads bent over Sam’s photonic shield. Ugh, Clint hates that thing. If it’s not the vibranium original, then does it even really count? 

He hustles past Banner and avoids eye contact with Jess to drop into a chair next to Natasha. She gently touches his hand and he detects a faint flicker of concern in her expression.

“You should see the other guy,” he says, and she frowns, looking around.

“James-” she begins, but then Sharon is calling the room to order and Barnes stays where he is, loitering at the back with his arms folded across his chest and his resting bitchface firmly in place. 

“This meeting is confidential,” Sharon says. “And not the regular confidential that you all ignore, but the sort of confidential that means if Stark doesn’t put his phone away I will take it from him by force.”

Everyone’s heads swivel to look at Tony, who glances around and in a moment of incredibly rare self-preservation, tucks his phone into his pocket and holds his hands up. Without missing a beat, Rhodes slips his hand into Tony’s pocket and takes the phone, turning it off before slipping it into his own jacket. 

“Okay,” Sharon says, steadying herself. “Commander Rogers is officially missing.”

“What?!”

“No way-”

“Are you sure?”

“When was he last seen?”

The whole team erupts into shocked muttering and murmured conversations. Rhodes has to literally push Tony back down into his chair - he’s looking stunned and like he’s about to go and start his own search party. 

Clint internally sighs, twisting around in his chair to look at Barnes. He’s gone even tenser, jaw clenched and shoulders hunched. Clint feels a completely unexpected stab of pity, because talking about Steve being missing sucks, and he and Barnes are the ones who failed in finding him.

“While this is obviously high-priority, we cannot drop the ball on existing ops,” Sharon says. “Parker, Drew, you are to keep doing whatever it is you are doing.”

“Following Eddie Brock around to check he hasn’t got any more symbiotes than usual,” Parker says with a salute. “We’re on it.”

“Everyone else is working on the AIM case. Rhodes, I’m pulling you on to the AIM case to cover Barnes. Barnes, Barton and Romanov will take point on looking for Commander Rogers,” Sharon says. “They will start following leads in Berlin. Phil is going to handle everything at SHIELD and make sure that word doesn't get out about Commander Rogers being missing. The last thing we want is panic over there. Stark, you can multitask. AIM business, electronic surveillance for Steve, work with Coulson to keep SHIELD from knowing he's gone.”

“What, that’s it?” Stark says. “Me, Agent Agent, the murder twins and Robin Hood?”

“We are in the middle of a huge break on AIM, remember?” Sam says pointedly. “You know, the missiles and the bio-weapons and the human experimentation? Hundreds of missing people?”

“But-”

“We can handle it,” Barnes says from the back. 

“Seconded,” Clint says. “You know he’d kill us for dropping the ball on the AIM case, even if it is to go rescue his ass.”

Tony blinks. “Wait, Barton is making sense and agreeing with Barnes? Is he a Skrull?”

“In my defense I am very sleep deprived,” Clint says. “And someone punched me real hard in the head.”

“You hit me first,” Barnes intones from the back, but it’s missing its usual hissing and spitting. He just sounds tired.

Tony looks at Sharon. “You want to send them  _ together _ , to rescue Cap.”

“I’m Cap,” Sam says, rubbing his face wearily.

“You don’t even have the proper shield,” Clint says and whoa, he must be sleep deprived if he’s saying this shit out loud.

“Enough,” Sharon says. “We are stretched thin enough as it is with the AIM case. I will move resources as I see fit but as it stands, that is what we are doing.”

“Who the fuck put you in charge?”

Everyone goes very quiet. Clint turns to look at Bucky, half-incredulous and half-impressed that he had the balls to say it out loud.

Sharon glares at him. “Problem?”

“You put yourself in charge of a situation you can’t handle,” Bucky snaps. “You just hauled our asses in from Berlin and now you’re telling us to go back? You’re not thinking straight.”

“You carry on picking fault with my decisions in front of the team and you’ll be taken off the case altogether,” she warns.

“Fuck that,” Bucky says in disgust. “I’m calling conflict of interest.”

Sam steps forwards. “Bucky, don’t make me say it, man.”

“What?! She’s clearly got no fucking idea how to find Steve and instead of letting me get on with it and find him she’s dragging me back here for a fucking meeting, to tell me nothin’ I didn’t already know-”

“You are the one at risk of being pulled over conflict of interest,” Sam says sternly. “She was right to pull you in before you ran off half-cocked and got someone hurt. If you can’t work with the others and think before you move, you’ll be benched.”

Bucky’s lip curls and he pushes away from the wall and storms out. Nat sighs and makes to get up but Clint shakes his head. “I’ll go,” he says, and slips out of his chair and out of the room.

He catches up with Barnes by the doors. “Hey, Barnes-”

“What, come to tell me to get my ass back into that meeting?”

“No, I’ve come to tell you that I agree with you, but we have to at least pretend to play nice with Sharon and SHIELD or they’ll cut us off and make finding Steve really hard,” Clint says. “I get it.”

“You have no idea,” Bucky snaps, turning to key in his code to get out.

“You’re not the only one who’s worried about him,” Clint says. “He was my best friend too, until you came back.”

Bucky goes very still, metal fingers frozen on the keypad. He huffs out a humourless laugh, then turns to look Clint straight in the eye. “You have no idea what me and Steve mean to each other,” he says, voice low and dangerous. “You have no fucking idea what we’ve been through. You weren’t there.”

And there’s something in the way he says it, something haunted and scared in his eyes that keeps Clint silent. He just clenches his jaw and stares defiantly at Barnes, until Barnes turns away, finally manages to key his code in then storms out, slamming the door behind him. 

“Jeez, dramatic much?” Clint grouches. He hovers for a moment, wondering what it is that's making him feel like he’s missed something here, like there’s a gap where something should have happened.

Voices and footsteps murmuring down the corridor make him move; the meeting has obviously been dismissed. Parker passes him first, holding up his hand for a high-five which Clint obliges; Banner goes past him next, nodding at him before heading deeper into the mansion instead of out of the front door; he’s closely followed by Jessica Drew, who looks away from him, pretending he's not there. Ouch, Clint thinks, but does concede that he was a shitty boyfriend to her so can't really expect anything more.

He should really stop sleeping with his teammates, maybe. 

He’s got half a mind to follow Bucky’s example and escape but as soon as the thought crosses his mind, he spots Natasha and Maria walking towards him and thinks better of it. He offers them a wave, but neither of them wave back, instead simply marching up to him like they mean business. It’s the sort of approach that normally has Clint wishing he were wearing body-armour, or at least a cup.

“Where did he go?” Natasha asks without preamble.  

“Out,” Clint says. “What? I’m not stopping him, he’s not a kid.”

Natasha makes a displeased noise and pulls her phone out. “We’re leaving in two hours,” she says. “Me, you and James.”

“Oh, joy,” Clint says wearily, and looks to Maria. “Don’t worry, I will be the epitome of professionalism.”   


“Did you really hit him first?” Maria asks.

“Yeah,” Clint admits. “He was pushing for it though.”

Natasha looks less than pleased but Clint swears he sees the ghost of a smile on Maria’s face. She’s not a huge fan of Bucky Barnes either - she was certainly not shy about making her objections known when Steve first bought him in. “I’m not sure if you’re brave or stupid,” she says.

“Me either,” he shrugs, smiling weakly at her.

Natasha makes another annoyed sound. “Clint, stop flirting for ten seconds and  _ move _ . We need to gear up.”

Clint chokes on air. “I am not flirting,” he says, and then looks at Maria. “Not that you’re not hot, but I was not, I was just being nice-”

Maria arches an eyebrow. “Did you just call me hot?”

Clint tries to find some way of removing his foot from his mouth, and as he flounders Nat seizes the opportunity to bundle him down the corridor towards the armory. 

“This mission is not going well for me,” he says.

“Oh Clint,” she says, patting his bicep in what is probably meant to be a reassuring manner. “That’s not the mission, that’s just your life.”

 

* * *

 

It’s two minutes before take-off and Clint is starting to hope that Barnes isn’t going to make it. He’s back in the pilot’s seat of the same jet he and Barnes returned stateside in, chugging a can of Monster and praying it’s got enough caffeine in to get him and the jet back to Europe.

“That stuff is bad for you,” Natasha says without looking at him.

“Being an Avenger is bad for me, but I keep doing it.”

She smiles at that, slow and amused. “True,” she says. “Maybe you should quit.”

“Okay, I quit.”

“No you don’t.”

He laughs, turning his attention back to the flight systems. He gets everything geared up and ready to go, and he’s just about to shut the back door of the jet when he hears a sound he was hoping not to hear but bracing for anyway: combat boots clanking up the metal walkway.

“Nice of you to join us,” Nat says as Barnes comes to stand behind her chair.

_ No it’s not, _ Clint thinks uncharitably.  _ You should have stayed at home. _

Barnes just grunts. “We going or are we just sitting here?”

“We were waiting for you, dumbass,” Clint says, downing the rest of his energy drink and tossing the can aside before hitting the button to close the back door. “Strap in, I’m doing this in five and a half hours.”

“That’s not safe,” Barnes says.

“You wanna find Steve or not?” Clint says. “Or do you wanna just sit around while he’s missing?”

He swears he can hear Barnes’ teeth grinding together from here. For a moment, he think he’s about to get punched in the head again but then Barnes just stomps away and sits down in one of the seats.

“Alright,” Clint says, firing up the engines. “Thank you for flying with Barton Airways, we accept no liability for injury caused by turbulence, make sure you log your frequent flyer miles, and your sick bag is in your seat pocket.”

“Just go,” Natasha says, and he does.

 

* * *

 

In his defense, he didn’t actually mean to make Barnes throw up. He’s flown more recklessly before and really, a stone-cold-assassin should not be having trouble with some minor turbulence. 

“You do not get to be mad at me about this,” he shouts over his shoulder once the jet has safely landed. “I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Barnes says hoarsely, appearing out of the tiny bathroom. He looks pale and sweaty and more gross than usual. Doesn’t stop Nat walking over though, pressing her palm to his cheek and asking him something in quiet Russian. 

“He’s not a baby,” Clint mutters, savagely jabbing at buttons on the console. For fuck’s sake, he gets sick and Nat just tells him to get a grip. Though she does bring him coffee and surprisingly tasty homemade Russian soup, so he knows she does actually care. It’s just - how come Barnes is the one she’s all touchy-feely with?

Well, he knows the answer to that, even if he doesn’t like it.

They leave the jet with a SHIELD contact, leaving the private airfield and making their way into the city centre. The sun is just starting to warm the concrete of the pavements and the city is already stirring, and Clint wishes for his bed with the intensity and desperation of a dying star.

“I am going to speak to an old friend,” Natasha says, digging her hand into her oversized handbag and pulling out an oversized iPhone and a pair of oversized sunglasses. She’s looking happy and relaxed, her face telegraphing  _ tourist  _ to anyone who looks her way. Bucky is still looking ill and Clint thinks he could park a truck in the bags under his eyes, which is probably why Nat takes pity and delves back into her bag, handing him another pair of sunglasses.

Barnes gives her a pleading look. “Могу я пойти с тобой?”

“ нет ,” she says. “No, you cannot come with me. You two are going to go to Bass. It’s a club. It’s recently been purchased by the owners of the club Clint already checked out.”

“Is it not worth going back there then?”

Nat shakes her head. “From what I can tell, there’s more activity and money coming through the second club. We’ll try there first. And by we, I mean you two. It’s open all night and pretty much all day so you can go now.”

“I am not dressed for clubbing,” Clint says. “I am not awake enough for clubbing.”

“I need ledgers,” Nat says, ignoring him. “And any contact numbers you can find.”

“Uggh,” Clint protests, though he thinks it comes out closer to a whine. “Nat-”

“I assume we need to get changed,” Barnes interrupts, rubbing his forehead and looking pained. “Have you booked a hotel?”

Nat sticks her hand into her oversized handbag and pulls out a sheaf of papers. “Reservations here,” she says. “Two rooms. I trust you two can find your own outfits?”

Bucky takes the paperwork from her with a sullen air. She rolls her eyes and turns to give Clint a credit card. “This is under Jeffrey Dunbar.”

“ _ Jeffrey _ ?” Clint echoes in disbelief. “Nat, do you hate me?”

“Says the man named Clint,” Barnes chips in. “Isn’t your brother called Barney?”

“Oh you wanna go there, James Buchanan-”

“I’m leaving,” Nat announces, and does just that, walking away from them and leaving them standing there in the cool morning air. 

Clint watches her go with same same resigned air that a kid might watch their Mom depart for work, leaving said kid alone and at the mercy of a big brother that he doesn’t exactly get along with. Actually, scratch that; the only person other than Barney that Clint would count as a brother is Steve. Barnes is more of a hated babysitter, not that Clint thinks he’s in charge here at all. 

“Come on then, let’s get this done,” Barnes says. “You know, you should have brought your black tactical gear. That looks enough like a Berlin bondage rave outfit.”

“You are not as funny as you think you are,” Clint says. “And you’re the one who is obsessed with black leather, not me.”

He turns his back on Barnes and starts walking because he feels like he won the argument with that one and doesn’t want to give Barnes time to clap back at him. He thinks he hears a vague mutter of ‘purple spandex’ but he decides to ignore it. “Sorry, can't hear you,” he calls back over his shoulder, gratified to see Barnes is actually following him. The less they argue, the sooner they can find Steve and everything can get back to normal.

Remarkably, they manage to not argue for the entire shopping trip. They get coffee and wait around for a nondescript clothing store to open, standing in not-quite-amicable but possibly tolerable silence.  Once the stores open they make a mutually unspoken agreement to split up, meeting back at the register. Barnes gets a pair of dark leather pants that look like they belong on a biker, and a long-sleeve black Henley. It’s so predictable that Clint has to literally bite his tongue to not make a joke. For himself, he gets a pair of skinny jeans and a shirt that’s probably a size too small. He wants to get it in purple but he’s aware of the hypocrisy in that predictable decision, so gets it in grey instead. 

He’s handing over his credit card when Barnes frowns. “One of us needs a jacket,” he says, and disappears, slinking away like a cat. Clint looks at the spot that Barnes had occupied, then to the cashier, then back again. He’s about to start apologizing in German when Barnes appears again; he pops up behind Clint and makes him jump, then thrusts a leather jacket towards him. 

“Try this.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Clint groans. “More leather?”

“Try it,” Barnes insists so Clint capitulates with a put-upon sigh, taking the jacket and slipping it on.

Oh. 

It fits perfectly and he looks  _ hot _ . He doesn’t even need a mirror to tell. It’s less clunky and biker than Barnes’ usual taste and more fitted and stylish. It’s supple and light across his shoulders and pulls in just slightly at the waist, and the sleeves are perfectly fitted - slim but with enough space to slip a knife into the cuff if needed.

“You’ll do,” Barnes says.

“How do you know my size?” Clint asks as he slips the jacket off and hands it to the cashier. Barnes’ eyes snaps up to his and he holds Clint’s gaze for a long moment, but then he just walks away and shoulders out through the door. Clint watches him through the window, exasperated at Barnes’ refusal to answer a basic goddamn question. 

“Your friend seems stressed,” the cashier says. “But at least he picked out a beautiful jacket for you, yes?”

“That he did,” Clint concedes, handing over his credit card, still watching Barnes who has stopped outside the front of the shop to light a cigarette. “And he’s always stressed, don’t worry about it.”

The cashier laughs in a polite, customer-service way and finishes ringing up Clint’s items. She hands them to him and Clint manages to remember to say thank you in German, which makes her smile. He gives her a wink before leaving, meeting Bucky outside.

“So, you just flirt with everyone, huh?” Bucky says sourly.

“No,” Clint replies. “I’m not flirting with  _ you _ .”

“You’re not my type,” Bucky says, and then lifts his chin somewhat defiantly and says, “I prefer redheads.”

Oh, that was uncalled for. Clint opens his mouth to say,  _ ‘Yeah well last time you two were together she still slept with me,’ _ and just manages to bite it back because even in his head he knows how cruel it would be to say and he really isn’t a monster. He clenches his jaw tight and shakes his head.

“Yeah, I know you do,” he says shortly. “So do I.”

It’s almost worth not rising to the bait for the surprised look that flits across Barnes’ face. Shaking his head, Clint starts walking. “Come on, let’s go get this over with so I can go back to bed.”

  
  


* * *

 

When they get back to the hotel, Natasha is nowhere to be found. The check-in clerk gives them one key, saying that Bucky’s sister has already checked in and collected the other. Clint is honestly too tired to have a tantrum about it and Barnes just nods curtly, apparently also willing to deal with it for now. They take the elevator up to the third floor and find the room at the end of the corridor. Clint knocks on the room next door, hoping Nat will be there, but no luck.

“We can just get changed in here,” Barnes says, opening the other room. “We’ll swap later.”

“Sure,” Clint says. He kicks the door shut as Barnes vanishes into the bathroom with his half of the new clothes, leaving Clint alone. The hotel room is pretty basic and very small; there’s two single beds, a lamp and a table with the room service menu on and that’s it. It’s clean though, which Clint admits is a pretty low bar to be grateful for.

Clint gets himself changed in less than a minute then promptly falls face down onto one of the beds. He’s pretty sure his real superpower is the ability to nap any place any time, because he’s out like a light within thirty seconds of fumbling out his hearing aids and mashing his face into a pillow.

He’s woken up by someone tugging on his ankle. He rolls over to see Barnes frowning at him and when his bleary eyes manage to focus his brows shoot up. 

Goddamnit, Barnes got  _ hot _ while he was napping.

Sure, Clint’s always known that under the grease and hair, Barnes is objectively handsome. But now, here he is with freshly-washed hair tied up in a bun at the base of his neck, clean shaven and  _ hot _ .

“What the fuck?” Clint manages, groping for his hearing aids. “How long was I asleep for?”

“‘Bout an hour,” Barnes says. “Wake up, we need to go.”

“You,” Clint starts, but stops himself talking. Unfortunately, he can’t stop himself staring as easily. 

“What?” Barnes says, and then Clint stands up and Barnes’ eyes flick down over the new tight-fit tee that Clint is wearing and he goes very quiet too.  “I,” he begins after an unreasonably long pause. “I’ve never seen you in...not purple.”

Clint’s beginning to feel a little self-conscious. “Grey’s not my colour,” he defends, smoothing his hand over the front of the t-shirt before going to retrieve the jacket. 

“Careful, there’s a knife hidden in the sleeve,” Barnes says.

“Sure,” Clint says, eyes still on Barnes as he slides the jacket on. “You have a man bun.”

Barnes’s expression goes pained. “Why is it a man bun? You don’t call them women-buns when a woman has one.”

“I don’t know. You just look different,” Clint says. 

“Yeah,” Barnes says, and reaches up to touch his jaw almost unconsciously. “I don’t think I’ve been clean-shaven since nineteen-forty-four.”

Clint huffs out a laugh. “Did you just make a joke?”

“No,” Bucky says shortly, picking up the room key from the table and handing it to Clint to slip into the pocket of his jacket. “I’m pretty sure that’s true. Now come on, we’ve got work to do.”

  
  


* * *

 

The club is set inside an old factory. It’s all concrete and exposed vents and heavy thudding bass that thrums through Clint’s belly, even from where they’re standing outside. He hates it already, knows that the volume of the music is going to make hearing any other sounds difficult.

“So this place has a reputation,” Barnes murmurs to him as they wander towards the entrance. “Apparently, anything goes.”

“Great. I’m assuming by anything you mean drink, drugs and orgies, that sort of thing?”

“Probably,” Barnes says. “Not that we’ll be partaking.”

“Not even a little bit?” 

Barnes just gives him a flat look, walking up to the bouncer and nodding with an easy confidence that he rarely shows when he’s not on mission. Clint keeps close, ducking his head and sidling in after Barnes. He wonders what people think of them, what assumptions they’re making about him and Barnes turning up at a place like this together.

The moment they step inside, Clint feels like they might as well’ve been transported to a whole other planet. The fresh summer morning is gone, locked out and hidden behind the heavy steel doors and boarded-up windows. It takes his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, punctuated only by orange and blue lights that slide impassively over people and walls alike. They don’t reach the dark corners of the room, leaving shadowed spaces that feel disconcerting and alluring at the same time. It feels seductive and slightly dangerous, the air warm with sweat and booze. They weave through the lower levels, past a bar and an empty dancefloor. The booths around the edge of the floor are busier: full of patrons drinking and dancing and even partaking in some extracurriculars that Clint is sure aren't standard for most nightclubs.

“Drugs, check,” he shouts in Barnes’ ear, jerking his chin towards a booth that appears to be covered in more cocaine than he's ever seen in his life. Jeez, he didn't even see that much while working for the mob. 

Barnes glances over, then nods in the opposite direction. “Orgies, check.”

Clint whips his head around so fast that his neck clicks. Wow, Barnes was right. That’s a lot of nakedness on show, not quite completely hidden in one of the dim recesses where the lights don’t reach. “So you think anyone can go join in? Or is it like they all know each other?”

Barnes gives him a disgusted look and stalks towards the stairs. Clint glances back at the orgy-table then dashes after Barnes. “I wasn’t asking for me!” he yells. “I’m just curious.” 

To the surprise of literally no-one, Barnes ignores him. Clint follows him up a metal spiral staircase to the next level which is busier, but seems to have less dicks on show. They go to the bar and Clint orders himself a beer; he asks Barnes what he wants and watches Barnes’ eyes slide over the shelf of whiskey bottles before shaking his head and turning away. 

Clint’s not sure what that’s all about and he doesn’t think it’s his business to ask, so he concentrates on following Barnes as they weave through the building. He’s not sure why they stick together while they scope out exits and security cams and -  _ jackpot  _ \- the offices, but it’s working and probably helping their cover or something. 

Barnes finally settles with his back to a wall, toilets to his right and the offices directly opposite him. There’s only one security guy and he seems less interested in his job and more in chatting up a guy in a literal mesh shirt. Clint’s not complaining because it makes their life easier. He’s not complaining about the mesh shirt either, because firstly, if there’s anywhere where you can get away with that sort of bold fashion choice, it’s here; and secondly the guy wearing it has abs that Clint would happily lick tequila from. Not as good as his own, but still. A solid eight. 

Barnes nudges him over slightly so he’s got a better line of sight to the offices. The lights here aren’t flashing or moving, just a steady orange glow like an old streetlamp, or backlighting in a carnival tent. It highlights the line of Barnes’ cheekbones, the shadow of his jaw. It makes him look lazy and dangerous, like a panther waiting to strike. 

Clint’s never seen him like this before. 

“So we need to get past that one guy,” Bucky says as Clint drains his beer and sets the plastic cup on a concrete ledge. “Mesh-shirt guy has just left and he’s looking this way. Don’t turn around.”

Clint just looks Bucky dead in the eye, hoping that Bucky can read the ‘I am not a fucking idiot’ that he's trying to convey. “I wasn’t going to,” he says. “What’s the guy looking at?”

“You,” Bucky says simply. “Okay, easy enough. Distract him and I’ll go in and get the stuff for Nat.”

Clint rears back. “Distract him? You mean seduce him.”

“Whatever works.”

“You’re kidding me, right? You’ve done too many missions with Nat. Honeytraps are her forte, not mine.”

“It’ll work,” Barnes insists. “He’s still looking at you.”

Clint sighs, turns to look over his shoulder, ignoring the alarmed noise Barnes makes. The security guy is indeed looking at him; dark eyes under a tumble of dark hair. He’s not the worst guy that Clint has ever had to distract, not that he’ll be admitting that to Barnes, ever.

“Why have I got to seduce the guy?” Clint grouches.

“Because I can’t take my shirt off,” Barnes says pointedly. 

“How far are you expecting me to go?” Clint asks. “How’s he even going to know I swing that way?”

Barnes looks Clint up and down, then cautiously reaches out to take his hand. 

“The hell are you doing?” Clint asks, trying to subtly yank his hand out of Bucky’s grip.

“We’re gonna move, heading towards the corridor back to the bar. You’re gonna kiss me. I’m gonna carry on and go to the bar,” Barnes says with literally no inflection in his voice, like he’s a robot. “Then you can turn your attention to him.”

“Not happening,” Clint says, still trying to pull his hand away. “Time for plan B.”

Bucky’s grip tightens on his hand and Clint winces. “I will do anything to get Steve back,” he says, low and angry. “This is the simplest solution. Now fucking suck it up and do what I say.”

“I really, really don’t like you,” Clint tells him.

“Whatever,” Bucky says. “Believe it or not, kissing you is not the worst thing I’ve ever had to do for a mission. In fact, it’s a welcome change of pace from what Hydra had me do. So sorry if it’s upsetting your delicate sensibilities but I actually prefer it as an option to killing and torture.”

Clint has to look away. “Point taken,” he mutters. “Hands off the merchandise though, pal.”

Bucky gives him a scornful look, but his grip on Clint’s hand does turn gentle. He pushes away from the wall, pulling Clint out into the open space. When Clint resists, he steps up close so they're almost pressed together, his mouth hovering near Clint’s ear. 

“Stop glaring at me, we've got to sell this.”

Clint feels his stomach go tight at the wash of warm breath over his ear. Goddamn, now is not the time for him to be thinking with his dick.  “Could be hate sex,” he says. He swallows hard, letting his hand drift up to settle on Barnes’ waist. 

“Not gonna happen,” Barnes breathes, and then he drifts his mouth over Clint’s in something that’s not quite a kiss and is far too intimate considering they hate each other, then he’s pulling back and walking away without another word.

“Asshole,” Clint snarls, wrong-footed and off-guard. He scowls at Barnes’ retreating back and then crosses his arms over his chest, not entire sure why he’s feeling so pissed off and petulant. He glances over at the office door and it’s only when he spots the security guy watching him with increased interest that he remembers the mission.

He lets out a self-deprecating laugh, wandering closer to the guy. “I just got turned down, didn’t I”

“I think you did,” the guy says.

“Great,” Clint says, laying it on a little like he’s tipsy and horny and has lower standards than he actually does. “Been tryn’ to get on that dick all night.”

“You could do better than that,” the guy says and Clint grins.  _ Bingpot _ , he thinks, taking another step closer.

“Yeah?” he smiles slow and wicked, and the guy smiles back. 

 

* * *

 

Forty minutes later and Clint is hightailing it out of the club, the shouts of a very pissed off security guy ringing in his ears. Clint has to roll his eyes; it’s not like he got the guy’s pants down before he changed his mind and said he was actually in love with his friend so he was going to find him even if he did get turned down again. No, he just got him against the bathroom wall for some light making out before changing his mind. 

He’s disorientated for a moment, bursting out of the doors into bright sunlight rather than darkness. His body clock has decided that making out with security in a hedonistic nightclub equals early hours of the morning, and his brain can’t quite compute that it’s actually closer to lunchtime. Ugh, his brain is already scrambled enough from having to fake-be-in-love with Barnes and the not-kissing thing that they did. 

Also, he realises as he heads out of the gate and starts walking back towards the city centre, he and Barnes have no rendezvous plan, which is just sloppy of them. It’s mission 101 and Clint’s annoyed at them both for forgetting it. See, them teaming up was a terrible idea; they can’t even get the basics right-

And he abruptly stops as he spots Barnes standing outside a coffee shop with a cup in each hand, a cap pulled low over his face. Relief rolls through Clint as he jogs over; he really didn’t fancy telling Natasha that he’d managed to lose Barnes in an orgy-club.

“Here,” Barnes says, thrusting out a cup towards Clint before Clint can even get a word out. “Wash the taste of security guard out of your mouth.”

Clint takes the cup slowly. “Is this - are you doing something nice for me?”

Barnes grimaces. “I know being intimate with people for a mission is not always the easiest,” he says carefully, looking like he’s contemplating eating wasps. “I’m sorry I put you in that position.”

Clint takes a sip of coffee. “At least tell me you got what you needed.”

Barnes nods. “Numbers, ledgers and a copy of all online files.”

“Where are they?”

Barnes gives him a look. “Tucked into the back of my pants. You wanna check?”

Clint feels himself flush. “No, I'm good,” he says, then sighs in relief. “At least it worked.”

Barnes still doesn't look happy. “Did you - I came to find you but you were in the bathrooms-”

“Oh man, you could have rescued me,” Clint says. “Kicked down the door, played the jealous ex or whatever.”

“I didn’t know that was the angle we were going for,” Barnes says stiffly.

“Neither did I, till I said it,” Clint says. 

Barnes just grunts, still looking pissed off. Clint has literally no idea what’s rattled him so just drops it and starts walking back towards the hotel. Barnes follows, still scowling and giving off palpable amounts of negative energy; it's like hanging out with a bad-tempered thundercloud.

By the time they get back to the hotel, Clint is ready to sleep for three days and doesn’t care where it happens. They trudge up to the room in silence and Clint crosses his fingers as Bucky knocks softly on Natasha’s door.

“Впусти меня,” he calls through the door. “Natasha. это я.”

There’s no answer. Heart sinking, Clint steps away to open the door to the other room, and immediately spots a note on the floor, slipped under the door while they were out.

_ Boys. I have some leads and all of them point to Steve being alive. I’ll be back in the morning. Stay here and get some rest. Do not break into my room or I will shoot you both. Kisses, Natalia.  _

_ Иаков - будь добр к нему. Стив тоже важен для него. _

“Barnes,” Clint calls, picking the note up. He show it to Barnes who reads it twice and then crumples it in his metal fist. 

“Not happening,” Barnes says, and stomps away. 

“Where are you going?” Clint hisses.

“To get a different room!”

Clint lets him go. It's no skin off his nose if Barnes wants to stay somewhere else; in fact, it means he’s got the room to himself so he can have a bath and laze around in his underwear - his favourite methods of destressing. He’s gone as far as to test the hot water in the bath taps when he hears a knocking at the door. His stomach sinks, because he doesn’t think Nat would knock.

He opens the door and sure enough, Barnes shoulders his way in. “No spare rooms,” he says. “And  _ someone  _ has taken my credit card.”

Clint holds his hands up in the face of Barnes’ murderous glare. “It wasn’t me,” he says. “I haven't stolen anything from you.”

“I know it wasn't you,” Bucky snarls, shutting the door quietly, a stark contrast to the anger he’s radiating. “I don’t even know why she wants us to get on.”

“Well,” Clint says uncertainty. “We kind of were getting on back there. You bought me a coffee.”

“Yeah because I made you suck that security guy’s dick and I felt bad about it!”

“Whoa,” Clint says. Is that why Barnes is so bent out of shape? He thinks he forced Clint to bang the security guy? “First off, I didn’t suck anything. I just kissed the guy.”

“ _ No-one _ should be forced to give over their body.”

“I hear you,” Clint says, wondering why he’s trying to reassure him. “Look, you were right. On a mission, anything goes. Especially if it’s to find Steve. I signed up to be an Avenger and to get shit done. I wouldn’t have done anything I couldn’t have lived with afterwards, trust me.” He exhales heavily, rubbing at the back of his neck. “I’ve still got my card. I’ll go find another place to stay if you really can’t deal with it.”

Bucky makes an irritated noise. “It's fine. We shouldn’t split up.”

“Let’s just…” Clint gestures uselessly. “Order room service and sleep and get to tomorrow morning.”

Barnes replies by going to lie down on his bed, his back to Clint. Sensing that the conversation is over, Clint goes with his original plan of locking himself in the bathroom and running himself a bath. Trying to relax is futile despite the warm water and bubbles; he's worried about Steve, stressed about this dumb mission which is more spy-games than shooting, and he's all turned around by Barnes not-kissing him in the club. 

See, Clint knows he's a flirt. He's not ashamed of it. In fact, he kinda likes it. Not when it gets him into trouble with his significant others because he  _ does _ take relationships seriously, no matter what other people think or say. Relationships aside, the thing here is that he usually  _ knows _ who he’s gonna flirt with, who will be receptive to said flirting, who he'll end up having in his personal space in some capacity. But Barnes just went ahead and smashed through Clints preconceived boundaries without so much as a heads up. 

Bucky goddamn Barnes is not someone Clint would ever even have put in the ‘friendly shoulder pats and hugs’ column, let alone anything more. 

It's unnerving, is what it is. Barnes has no business surprising Clint like that because Clint doesn't want to admit that he's wrong about Barnes in any way, shape, or form. 

Still completely unrelaxed, he gives up and gets out of the bath, getting back into his jeans because sharing a room with Barnes means no hanging around naked. Fuck putting a shirt on though, he’s not doing that until absolutely necessary and if Barnes doesn’t like it he can suck a dick. He slips one hearing aid back in, listening for sounds in the other room, half-expecting Barnes to have caved and broken in to the other room despite Nat's warning. Hell, given half a chance he’d probably do it, just to get some space from stupid-handsome-Barnes and the whole weird guilt-trip about making Clint seduce a security guard.

What he finds is yet again not what he was expecting at all: Barnes is sitting up against the headboard of the second bed, reading the mission files and eating pizza. 

There's a second box on Clint's bed, unopened and smelling gloriously warm. 

“Didn't know what you liked so I ordered you pepperoni,” Barnes says without inflection. 

“My favourite,” Clint admits. “Thanks, Barnes.”

Bucky's eyes flick up from the paperwork, warm in the light from the bedside lamp. Clint thinks he’s back to his stoic and silent routine, but as he sits down on the bed and flips open the pizza box he hears a quiet and surprisingly unsarcastic, “You're welcome.”

 

* * *

 

Clint's woken up in the early hours of the next morning by someone thumping his shoulder. He jerks his head up off the mattress, dazed and confused. Squinting in the darkness, he watches as Barnes heads to the door, pulling it open. Light from the corridor outside spills in, a splash of yellow over the carpet which enables him to see a familiar silhouette slink in. 

“Nat,” he breathes, scrambling for his hearing aids as Barnes closes the door.  

“What did you find,” she says without preamble, sitting on the edge of Clint's bed beside his feet. She looks between them expectantly. 

Barnes clicks the lamp on before retrieving the the stolen ledgers and paperwork. “The club is definitely Hydra money,” he says, handing them over. “New Hydra.”

“Mmm, I thought it might be,” she says, distractedly scanning the paperwork in front of her. Clint gropes for his phone, checking the time: 4:13am. One of these days, he might just be able to sleep on a normal schedule.

“What're you thinking?” Barnes asks Nat, voice low. 

“I'm thinking that I know who to visit next,” she says slowly. She stands up, still scanning the ledgers. “I'll text you your next move.”

“Wait-” Clint starts, but Barnes is quicker. He grabs Nat's wrist to stop her moving, and he means business because he's taken hold with the metal one. Clint shuts his mouth because he knows damn well that Barnes has been on a rollercoaster of emotions over the past few days and if he’s at the point where he’s picking a fight with Natasha, then Clint can admit he’s out of his depth.

“Don't,” Barnes says tightly. “Don't just give me that evasive bullshit. You owe me more than a sit and wait.”

“I don't owe you anything,” she says and Barnes jerks back like she's slapped him. “Let me go.”

Barnes does, dropping her wrist. “This is about Steve,” he says. 

“Then stop talking about what you and I do or do not owe each other,” she says, colder than Clint has ever heard her speak to Barnes. “I will text you. Do as I’m telling you or I will ring Sharon and have you benched.”

_ Ouch, _ Clint thinks.  _ Shots fired _ . Nat briefly touches Clint's shoulder and then leaves again, the ledgers and lists they'd acquired tucked under her arm. Clint sits there on his bed, fully expecting to feel smug about it, but he doesn't. He just feels awkward and kind of sympathetic because he knows how it feels to have Nat pull a stunt like that. 

The door closes. The room is dark again, save for the corner warmed by the lamp. Barnes just stands there, a statue in the gloom. 

Clint wonders if it would be rude to just go back to sleep, but the moment calls for something here. He’s never been so aware of him and Barnes being in the same boat; before any potential common ground they had would be a cause of conflict, not commiseration. Not this time though. “So,” he says, still feeling awkward. “You ever wish she'd just tell you what she was thinking?”

Barnes laughs, bitter. “She used to.”

Clint fiddles with his phone, turning it over in his hands. “What… What actually happened between you two?”

He thinks Barnes is going to tell him to go fuck himself. He braces himself but then Barnes just seems to give in, his whole posture slumping. He rubs tiredly at his face. “Hydra got hold of her. Screwed with her memories. Made her forget me.”

Clint's stunned. He had no idea that that’s how it ended between them. And he has no idea what to say. He flounders for a moment then goes with, “I'll add that to the list of reasons that Hydra sucks.”

Barnes snorts again, though the laughter sounds less resentful than it did. “It's a fucking long list.”

Clint opens his phone, snaps it shut again. Irritation passes over Barnes’ face at the noise. “Will you fuckin’ quit it.”

And there is it. They were doing so well. “I'm not actually doing it to annoy you.”

“Then you're just annoying by default,” Barnes replies but it's half-hearted at best. He climbs back onto his bed. “Fuck. I hate this. Sitting around and waiting while Steve is-” He cuts himself off, and just before he rolls over to put his back to Clint, he sees the twist of his mouth which gives away exactly how much he feels like screaming right about now. 

Not seeing what he can do, Clint just quietly sets his phone aside, takes his hearing aids back out and lies back down. 

This time, he doesn't fall asleep in thirty seconds flat. Instead, he spends ten inexplicable minutes staring at the back of Barnes’ head before sleep claims him. 

****  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the note that Natasha leaves, the Russian says, "James- be kind to him. Steve is important to him too."


	3. Chapter 3

Clint dreams frustrating dreams of running around New York, trying to find his bow. He repeatedly dream teleports between Avengers mansion and Starbucks, when he knows he actually needs to be checking SHIELD HQ. The subway is closed and his car won’t start so he hails a cab. His driver turns out to be Steve who knows full well everyone is looking for him, but he handwaves that and tells Clint that he’s got no idea about his bow but does know that Bucky has his quiver.

He’s jolted out of the dream by something hitting him in the face; he jerks awake wildly and the vestiges of frustration from his dream combined with the fact he’s been hit in the face by something means his first words are a sleepy and rough, “Hnnn, go fuck yourself.” 

Barnes kicks at Clint’s mattress as he passes, striding across the room and yanking the curtains back. Sunlight punches Clint in the eyes and he groans, trying to roll over and hide. His face mashes into something squishy and plastic and he jerks back in surprise, squinting until a packaged sandwich comes into view.

“Did you wake me up by throwing a sandwich at me?” he asks, sitting up. He picks the sandwich up and then looks at Barnes who is peering out of the window. “Hang on,” he says. “Why are you dressed? Wait, are you going somewhere? Wait, have you been somewhere?”

He sees Bucky’s mouth moving but can’t hear any words or lipread him because Barnes is choosing to keep scowling out of the window instead of facing him. Rude. He groans and forces himself out of bed, rolling to land on the floor so he can check his bow is safely under his bed. Thank god it’s there, not lost somewhere in New York. 

He kneels up, half slumped over the bed as he digs for his hearing aids, lost somewhere in the tangle of pillows and blankets. He eventually finds them and slips them in, and when he looks up, Barnes is standing there staring down at him.

“What?”

“How have you even survived this long?”

Clint shrugs. “Luck and a strong immune system?” 

“Oh good, for a moment I thought you were going to say skill and professionalism.”

Clint scowls. “Where have you been anyway?”

“I haven’t been anywhere.”

“You’re wearing gloves and your leather jacket smells cold. You’ve been outside.”

Bucky gives him a long look and then caves. “I went tracking some of the names I saw on the intel from the club. There’s a guy I know who is...Hydra adjacent, shall we say. He’s never actually had a pin of his own, but he’s a guy with connections. I want to go talk to him.”

Clint blinks owlishly at him. “Nat said to stay put.”

“Nat is not in charge,” Bucky replies.

A smile slowly dawns over Clint’s face. “My, my, James Buchanan. Are you going rogue?”

“Yes,” Barnes says, jaw clenching. “I’m done waiting around. We got that intel, we’re using it.”

“We?”

“Yeah, unless you’re scared,” Barnes says, the challenge clear in his tone.

Clint rolls his eyes. “Stop trying to goad me, I literally need no encouragement to disobey my superiors.”

“You said we have to play nice,” Bucky says, accusing. “Back at the meeting.”

“Play nice _sometimes_ ,” Clint says. “This is clearly a not-nice moment. This is a, Nat has tried to tell us what to do because she thinks she’s better than us, moment. Ergo, not nice.”

Bucky scowls. “Nat _is_ better than us.”

“Only like ninety percent of the time,” Clint says, getting up and reaching for his shirt. “This might be a ten percent moment so we better take advantage of it.”

“Whatever gets you dressed and out that door,” 

Clint drags his shirt over his head, slips his new jacket on and starts gathering up his things. “Does this plan of yours involving me shooting bad guys from a high vantage point somewhere?”

“No, it involves me going to talk to someone while you watch the exits.”

“Ugh, boring,” Clint says. He goes to walk out but Bucky stops him with a metal hand on his chest, pushing him back into the room with strength that somehow surprises Clint, despite knowing that Barnes has a crackpot version of the super-soldier serum.

“If you come with me, we are officially going against orders because Nat outranks us.”

“I’m not a soldier, I’m an Avenger,” Clint says. “Rank has no meaning.”

“Yes it does.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot you used to pretend to be Captain America,” Clint says. “Hey, did you notice that no-one ever listened to you then, either?” 

“Yeah but I thought that was because I’d been a brainwashed assassin that worked for the Red Room and Hydra for seventy years rather than it being issues with the rank,” Bucky says, sounding tired. Tired enough that it makes Clint pause. 

"Yeah probably the Hydra thing," he agrees, doubling back to grab the sandwich. "Can we go now?" 

"Sure," Bucky says. “Not like I’ve been working all night while you snored your ass off.”

“Hey, I’m not a super soldier,” Clint argues around a mouthful of ham and cheese. “I am merely a man and a man needs sleep.”

Bucky doesn’t answer but Clint doesn’t mind. The vibes radiating from him are determined and a little distracted but not hostile, which is frankly the best their working relationship has ever been and Clint finds himself not wanting to upset that. Not before he’s finished his sandwich, anyway.

  


* * *

  

True to Bucky’s veritable reputation as one of the most paranoid people in SHIELD, they catch two buses, walk about six miles, double back on themselves eight times and loop around two street markets before heading into an apartment block on the edge of Berlin. Of course the apartment they’re looking for is on the fifteenth floor and the graffiti-decorated elevators aren’t working.

“I’ll wait down here,” Clint says, peering up the stairwell at the endless railings, folding back on themselves in an endless dizzying spiral. “See you in a bit.”

“Incorrect,” says Bucky, glaring at the elevator like it’s offended his mother. Not that Clint’s definitely sure that Barnes ever had a mother; he sometimes suspects that Steve assembled him somewhere back in the forties from spare engine parts and dead GIs. 

“If you’d let me bring my bow, I could have shot a line into the roof and zipped us up there,” Clint says.

“Natasha was right, you are not discreet,” Bucky says, but before Clint can snap back he adds, “But I never said not to bring your bow, that was all you. Maybe you’re learning.”

Clint frowns, thinking back over the morning, and mentally curses as he realises Barnes is right. He’s going to make a smart-ass remark but Bucky has already started off up the stairs and Clint can only groan and follow. For a while it’s only the sound of their boots on the concrete, any sounds from within the apartments muffled by closed doors. To make the trek go quicker, Clint tries counting steps, then tries counting steps in his very basic Russian, then gives up and just watches Barnes, powering away about eight steps ahead. He’s got thighs of steel and not a bad ass either, Clint ponders, cocking his head as he watches said ass flex with every step. Just a pity it’s attached to someone like Barnes. 

Even as he thinks it, he remembers the not-kiss from the club and for some reason it makes his neck go uncomfortably hot. Okay, maybe it’s not just the ass. Maybe it’s the whole of Barnes’ outer shell that Clint is reluctantly appreciating, though it’s still only a somewhat pretty package over an asshole centre, so it doesn’t count for shit.

He needs Nat. Or to hang out with Jess again. And by hang out he means sleep with, because he needs to do something to get Barnes out of his system and stat, because he’s clearly got issues if he’s bypassing the greasy hair and scowl, and starting to find Barnes’ ass and jawline and eyes appealing. Even running the gauntlet of a dalliance with his ex seems a more sensible option than thinking about Bucky any more.

He’s so busy thinking that he almost runs into Bucky where he’s stopped outside a door. Bucky’s too focussed on 15a to notice Clint’s almost-stagger and flail, staring at it like he can see through the wood. 

“Shhh,” he breathes and Clint capitulates, going as still and quiet as he can.

Bucky frowns and reaches out, pushing the door with a single gloved finger. It clicks and swings open easily. That’s not a great sign but Clint can be discreet no matter what Nat says, so he keeps his mouth shut as Bucky holds his breath and edges in to the apartment. Clint steals in after him, pulling the door shut behind them and tiptoeing down the short hall. He keeps up being discreet as they search the apartment, until they get into the bathroom and find the body in the tub. The guy is wearing a bloodied pair of pyjamas and a startled expression, and his neck is clearly broken. 

“Well, fuck,” Clint says.

“Yeah, fuck,” Bucky agrees, rubbing at his forehead like he’s got a headache blooming. Can super-soldiers get headaches?

Clint peers at the guy, trying to see if he recognises him from any mission briefings or files. “Is that your Hydra adjacent friend?”

“Yep,” Bucky says as he stares at the body, and then blinks himself back into awareness. “Full sweep. Go.”

Clint’s moving and doing it before he can even think to argue or give Bucky shit about bossing him around. It makes him clench his jaw, oddly annoyed at himself. He didn’t let Steve boss him around for months, and here he is on his first goddamn op with Barnes and acting like he’s the goddamn sidekick.

He finishes his sweep and doesn’t find any bugs, but does find a passport and a wallet hidden in the headboard of the bed, which he doesn’t think twice about taking. He also finds a lone Cornetto in the freezer, which he doesn’t think twice about eating.

He wanders back into the bathroom where Bucky is methodically taking photos of the inside of the medicine cabinet. He glances Clint and he stares at his ice-cream in disbelief. “This is a crime scene, Barton.”

“What, is this the murder weapon?" Clint asks. "Get off my dick.”

Bucky’s mouth falls open in affront but he’s distracted by his phone buzzing in his hand. His scowl transfers seamlessly from Clint to his phone, and then he visibly blanches as he sees the name and picture on the screen.

“Natasha,” he says, staring at the screen and swallowing hard.

“Answer it,” Clint says, crunching down the last of his Cornetto cone. 

Bucky steels himself then answers the phone in Russian, because he’s a dick like that. Clint scowls and when the conversation carries in more Russian than his conversational ordering train-tickets and cussing can handle, he goes back to searching. He turns his attention to the bookcase, taking pictures of the way all the books are laid out before taking any off the shelves and flipping through. He’s accidentally immersed in a book full of historic street maps of Berlin when Bucky stomps back in.

“Don’t move the fucking books, asshole, they might be in a specific order-”

“Whoa, calm down, I took photos of the whole thing before I moved anything.”

Bucky opens his mouth and closes it again, like a furiously angry, greasy carp. Clint lifts a brow at him. “I’m not actually incompetent.”

“I know, you aren’t!” Bucky bursts out. “Natasha wouldn’t like you more if you were incompetent,” he snaps. He looks like he regrets it the moment he says it, his jaw clenching tight, eyes averted as his cheeks go a blotchy red. 

The words ring in Clint’s ears for a moment before he can properly process. “Barnes-”

“Shut the fuck up,” Bucky says, voice thick. “She says we have to go.”

“No, I think we're gonna talk about what you just said.”

“Christ, will you drop it, you’re worse than Steve,” Bucky snarls, and then his face really falls. His eyes are too bright and it honestly looks like he’s about to break down right there in the middle of their crime scene. 

Clint’s never seen him look like that, ever. To be fair, he’s never seen him look anything other than grumpy or belligerent. Clint tries to find words. A part of him wants to press the Natasha issue, to make Barnes tell him what the hell he meant. Natasha says she doesn’t have favourites but everyone fucking knows it’s Barnes, so why is Barnes saying-

Clint makes himself stop. As loathe as he is to admit it, they’ve got bigger issues. “Barnes,” he says awkwardly. “We’ll find him. You know that, right?”

“We need to leave,” Barnes says tonelessly, shutting down into something more familiar and expressionless. “This place is compromised. They probably killed him the moment they worked out that we were in Berlin.”

“So someone knows we’re here?” Clint asks, stomach sinking. “Someone being bad guys like eyedra-hay?” 

“Discreet,” Barnes says, but it’s more of a disillusioned huff than a real bite. “We need to go.” The words are barely past his teeth when he goes stiff all over, tensing hard before marching to the window. “Sirens,” he says to Clint. “We really need to go.”

“Here,” Clint says, thrusting the passport and wallet he found at Bucky, who takes them without question, shoving them inside his jacket. “Hang on,” he says, and detours to the bedroom, yanking open the wardrobe and pulling out a long coat. He pulls it on over his jacket, and rummages around until he finds a hat, jamming it on his head and running back to Bucky. “At least if anyone’s watching it might throw them off,” he says. “People don’t tend to recognise me at the best of times, they’ll think-”

“You’re someone different,” Bucky finishes, already at the door. “Head to the U-Bahn. Get back to the hotel. I’ll meet you there.”

“Copy,” Clint says and then Bucky’s gone, shoving out the apartment door and vaulting the bannister. Clint’s heart leaps into his throat but trusts that Barnes hasn’t ended up as a pancake in the lobby; he’s a professional and knows what he’s doing, most of the time. 

As does Clint. In a stark contrast to Barnes bat-out-of-hell exit strategy, Clint shoves his hands in the pocket of his borrowed coat and meanders down the stairs, acting as a weary local who is resigned to the fact the elevator will never be fixed. He hears the sirens when he’s on floor seven, and on the second floor he hears commotion at the doors. He passes two police-officers on the first floor stairs and breathes an internal sigh of relief as they march straight past him.

The relief lasts for about three seconds because that's how long it takes for two more police officers to appear. Clint stops abruptly because these guys are head to toe in black - including heavy riot-gear helmets that cover half their faces - and are packing some serious firepower. 

"Halt," one barks at Clint, who immediately puts his hand in the air. These guys look like the Spezialeinsatzkommando, the Berlin equivalent of SWAT, and Clint knows that they are not to be fucked with. 

"I'm stopping, I'm stopping," Clint says, alarmed by how quickly their semi-automatics have been raised. "I'm here with SHIELD. I'm an Avenger?" 

There's a voice from further up the stairwell; one of the police officers who had previously run past has returned, frowning as he takes in the scene on the first floor. 

"Ich wusst nicht, dass andere Teams gebeten worden waren, zu antworten," he says slowly. The two SEK officers glance at each other, then one raises his rifle and guns the police officer down. 

Clint lets out a strangled yelp as the guy falls, blood spattering the stairwell. The second officer rattles off something into his radio and then turns to Clint, now speaking in placid midwestern tones, utterly devoid of any European accent. "Move. Hands in the air. No shouting, now."

"You're not even German, are you?" Clint says, oddly betrayed by the fact. 

"Move," the guy insists. 

"Just shoot him," the other adds, impatient. 

"No we'll take him to the boss, add him to lot twelve. Or at least the bow," the second says and looks back to Clint. "Move before I shoot you, or before the rest of the police get here because I just told them that you killed one of their officers."

“Let me guess, Hydra?” Clint asks. “Or Hydra adjacent?” 

The man makes a truly irritated noise and marches towards him. Clint’s fingers twitch automatically, reaching for a bow that isn’t there, and he mentally curses and readjusts into hand-to-hand mode. The guy lifts his gun and Clint decides ‘fuck it,’ ducking and tackling the guy, hitting him hard in the midriff and sending them toppling down the stairs. They hit the landing hard in a tangle of limbs, hard enough to knock the breath out of them both.

There’s a shout and more gunfire and out of the corner of his eye, Clint sees the second police officer return and fall in quick succession but he’s preoccupied with the guy currently trying to strangle him with a wire he pulled from one of his ten million tac-vest pockets. Clint gets a hand between his neck and the garrotte and elbows him hard in the face. 

“Fuck you and fuck whoever you work for,” Clint bites out, kicking back and trying to get the fucking guy off him. The guy has arms and a leg wrapped around him, clinging on in the world’s most unwelcome piggy-back. 

“Don’t make this more difficult than it needs to be,” the man hisses back, voice staining with the effort of keeping Clint pinned in place.

“Have you met me?” Clint pants. He manages to get hold of one of the guys fingers, pulling it back, back, back until the guy grunts in pain and his grip lessens-

“Just hold him still!” The second guy yells and Clint looks up, barely in time to see the butt of a semi-automatic swinging hard towards his face. _‘Oh, this looks bad,’_ he thinks and then there’s pain, then nothingness. 

 

* * *

 

Clint wakes up in a cage in the back of a police van, and his first thought is _‘ouch,_ ’ followed quickly by _‘Oh for fucks sake, I’ve been kidnapped, Barnes is not going to happy.’_ His head is pounding and to add to the indignity of being kidnapped by fake SWAT he’s been stripped out of all of his clothes, except his underwear. His hands are cuffed in front of him with the sort of heavy duty cuffs that SHIELD use, which is yet another reason that today sucks. He’d grade it at a definite F minus. The only saving grace is that they’ve not confiscated his hearing aids.

He’s got no idea how long he’s been in here. If he’s been knocked out for a while they could be pretty much anywhere in Europe. He doesn’t know the exact distances but he knows it’s not like the States; an hour or two of driving can get you across like ten different countries. Oh man, he better not end up in Budapest again. 

“Hey,” he shouts, reaching up to bang his cuffs against the metal partition between him and the driver. “Hey, fake-German assholes!”

There’s no response. Clint huffs and starts looking around, trying to see if there are any cameras anywhere that he can disable and pull the wires out of-

The van swerves sharply like the driver has reacted last-minute to avoid a pothole or something, sending Clint thumping into the side of the cage. “Hey! What are you, a cab driver?” He yells and then as if in response, the van lurches and swerves again, and this time it doesn’t stop. It’s almost as if it’s hit a kerb and burst a tyre and is losing control, or if someone with a sniper rifle and good aim has deliberately burst the tyres-

The van hits something hard and grinds to a halt. Clint braces himself, waiting for either more movement or terrible things to happen. He can’t hear shit through the walls of this fucking van, and he would really like to know what the hell just happened, and if he’s going to have to brace himself for fighting in his boxers.

Finally, he hears something. The screech of metal on metal which is never a pleasant sound, and then a thump as the back doors of the van are wrenched open, revealing a very familiar silhouette. 

“Come on,” says Bucky, impatient. “Don’t just sit there.”

Clint attempts to scramble out of the van, but his legs won’t co-operate and he’s still a little off kilter from being bashed in the face. He ends up sinking to the asphalt in a weird not-quite fall, squinting in the sunlight and trying to get his bearings. They’re on some sort of abandoned industrial area and the van is pressed up against the concrete wall of a warehouse. The engine is hissing and the front windshield is smashed. He can’t see either of his fake-German captors.

“They dead?”

“Yeah.”

“We still in Germany?”

“Yeah. Outskirts of Berlin,” Bucky tells him. “You weren’t gone long. How did they even get you in the van? What happened?"

Clint scowls, staggers to his feet. “I didn’t need you to rescue me.” 

“No, but I thought I’d speed things up a little,” Bucky says, grabbing the back of Clint’s arm as Clint lists sideways, still slightly dizzy. “Tell me what happened." 

"Police arrived. Then these guys. I thought they were SEK, you know, like SWAT? But they were American, and they shot the police officers. And they were gonna shoot me but one said they'd add me and my stuff to a lot?" 

"A lot," Bucky repeats, confused. 

"Yeah, I don't get it either," Clint admits. "You think this is all connected? Steve missing, and that guy dead, and the SEK being compromised?"

Bucky shakes his head. "I don't know. I do know that _we're_ compromised. The apartment building was bugged, not the apartment itself. They knew the moment we stepped into the lobby. And as well as Hydra or Hydra adjacent knowing we’re here, the police want you in connection with the murder of two police officers and the WSC want me to hand myself in.”

“What?” Clint tries spitting the blood taste out of his mouth. “The WSC?”

Bucky swings his backpack around and pulls out a bottle of water, handing it to Clint. “Yeah. The German Special Protection Service don’t like me much. I’m meant to be tagged whenever I’m in the country.”

“Well that would have been good to know three days ago.”

“I’m not letting them tag me,” Bucky says fiercely. “I don’t need anyone keeping track of me, not anymore.”

“Whoa, okay, okay,” Clint says. “But the point stands that we’re being watched by the bad guys, we’re now both technically considered criminals by the good guys, and at least one branch of law enforcement has been infiltrated by Hydra or Hydra adjacent.”

“And Natasha and Carter are going to murder us for disobeying orders and making a mess of this entire op.”

“Murder us? No,” Clint says, seesawing his hand and trying to remember the last time Carter threatened him, and how seriously he took said threat. “Bench us? Probably. Make demeaning comments about our capabilities as Avengers? Definitely.”

“And Steve is still missing,” Bucky adds, frustrated. "This mission is FUBAR."

“You’re telling me,” Clint says, raking his hands through his hair. “All my shit is at the hotel. My fucking bow-”

“I have it,” Bucky interrupts. “Don’t worry. I have all of our things. They’re in the car.”

“You have a car?”

“No, I didn’t say it was my car, I said the car.”

“You stole a car?”

“It’s a rental.”

“That you stole.”

“You want a lift or not?” Bucky asks, walking towards the crashed van and wrenching open the passenger door with his metal hand. He leans in so Clint can only see him from the ass down, which is admittedly the half Clint prefers to look at. “And do you want your clothes back or are you carrying on naked?”

“I’m not naked,” Clint protests, because somehow that’s important. He takes a step towards the van and then his shirt comes sailing through the air, hitting him in the face. He drags it away and then hastily goes to Barnes, before the asshole can start throwing his boots.

Barnes slithers out of the van with Clint's clothes balled up in his arms. His eyes dart down and then back up to Clint's face, so quick that anyone else would have missed it. “Get dressed then,” Bucky all but barks at him, thrusting the bundle of clothes  at him and determinedly looking up at the sky. He’s going pink across his cheekbones again, a dull flush that has no business being on a cyborg super-soldier’s face.

"You were in the army, how does casual nudity bother you," Clint grumbles, eventually tiring of Bucky’s nun in a strip club act as he's hopping from foot to foot trying to get his socks on. Barnes looks at him, startled, and Clint's got no idea what put that look on his face but he's not got time to figure it out because his goddamn phone is ringing, thankfully still accounted for, shoved deep in the back pocket of his jeans. He’s going to throw the thing in the first river he finds. He doubles down on his resolute to drown the damn thing as he sees the caller ID, trapping the phone between his shoulder and ear as he sits down to tug his boots back on, ignoring Bucky's impatient hovering just behind him. 

“Hey Nat.”

“Get out of Berlin,” she says immediately. “James has managed to compromise you both by running around thinking he knows best.”

Clint glances up at Bucky, feeling mildly guilty because he encouraged James to go off piste on their mission orders. Only mildly though, because more of him is grateful that Nat is mad at Barnes and not him.  “Yeah, we know. I’ve been framed for the murder of two police officers, the WSC know Barnes is here and some bad guys just tried to kidnap me.”

Natasha goes very quiet for a moment. “This is bad, Clint.”

“I know.”

“Really bad.”

“We know!” Clint insists. “We are not taking this lightly, Nat!”

“Okay,” Nat says, and her voice pulls away, presumably talking to someone on her end of the line, or maybe even on another line altogether. Clint sometimes imagines her with eight legs, a cell phone in each. “Clint, you there?”

“Yep.”

“Put me on speaker so James knows the plan too.”

“I can hear you anyway,” Bucky says tonelessly, staring off into the distance. Clint puts the phone on speaker anyway, because Nat told him to and they’re in enough trouble for ignoring her.

“Stark is going to remotely pilot your quinjet home, the one Clint left. As far as the WSC and anyone digging will be concerned, you and James are on it.”

“How will we actually get home?”

“James, remember Sergei?” Natasha says, and Bucky grunts in acknowledgement. “I’m cashing in our favours to get you passage home.”

“No way,” Bucky protests. “That’ll take days. Steve might not have days-”

“I think you are underestimating just how screwed you are,” Natasha snaps, and then the sting vanishes from her voice, going as soft and gentle as it ever does. “All intel points to Steve still being alive, mostly because Hydra haven’t made any global announcements about his death.”

Bucky blanches. Clint gets it - putting Steve and any words connected to ‘dead’ in the same sentence is something he’s been trying very hard not to do.

“Clint, you make sure James gets on the boat and stays on it.”

“I’m not his keeper,” Clint complains and then his brain catches up. “Wait, boat? Did you say boat?!” But of course Natasha hates him and has already hung up.

 Clint stares at his phone for a while and then looks across at Bucky. “Boat?”

“Yes. Boat,” Bucky says, and Clint groans, slumping down in his seat and wishing he could rewind time and stop Steve ever fucking going to Germany. The idiot is still missing, he and Bucky are potentially about to be murdered by Hydra and now it sounds like he’s got to catch a _boat_ back home. The boat itself isn’t the problem, it’s the idea of having to share a cabin with Bucky goddamn Barnes for the whoever many days it’ll take to cross the entire Atlantic.

Yep. This mission is definitely an F for FUBAR. 

 

* * *

 

In hindsight, Clint should have guessed that they weren’t going to be travelling Royal Caribbean, or even on a Cunard liner. The fact that they’re having to stay off the grid should really have clued him in. As it stands though, after four hours of Barnes’ trademark paranoid driving, a bus and a half hour march, he finds himself standing on some industrial pier in Hamburg, staring up at a container ship the size of the Chrysler building. 

“Aw, boat, no,” he says.

“Not exactly a Cunard-White Star,” Bucky agrees.

“God you’re old,” Clint says and Bucky just huffs at him and goes to speak to an approaching sailor. Is that the right word? Cargo-man? Container wrangler? Whatever he is, he clearly knows Bucky because they’re nodding at each other and having a conversation that Clint hasn’t a hope of catching, partly because it's in Russian and partly because the range on his hearing aids is good but not that good. He’s been wearing them for too long as well, and knowing he’s gonna have to take them out to let his ear canals breathe isn’t making him feel any less tense and grumpy.

Movement catches his eye; Bucky’s waving him over. He goes over, ignoring the curious looks Bucky’s friend is giving him. “Come on,” Bucky says. “We’re now officially stowaways.”

Clint follows Bucky and the Russian as they walk along the edge of the dock towards a set of stairs that look impossibly narrow and steep. “What, like Tom Hanks?”

“No, that’s Castaway, not Stowaway.”

“Wait, you know Castaway?”

“I’m a hundred and two, I’m not dead,” Bucky says. “I know some things.”

“What, like you know dubious Russian sailors who are willing to smuggle us aboard a cargo ship in the dead of night?”

“Yeah, that and Tom Hanks IMDB back catalogue.”

Clint pauses. “Did you just make a joke?”

“No-one's laughing, so clearly not.”

Clint’s mouth twitches in a not-quite smile. “I would have laughed a bit if I wasn’t so...surprised. Let's go with surprised.”

Bucky makes an aggravated sound in the back of his throat. “Can we just...not start arguing.”

“I’m not arguing.”

“You we’re picking at me for making a joke!”

“I wasn’t! I just told you I was surprised!”

Bucky stops dead, turning to glare at him. Expression half-hidden in the shadow of the hulking ship, he looks dangerous in the way a trapped animal looks dangerous. Tightly coiled fury and a whole lot of fear. “I know you don’t like me, okay? But I’m not - I’m not as fucking awful as you make out. I have friends who like me-”

“I know, I know,” Clint interrupts, a little taken aback. Jeez, what nerve has he hit this time? “I know you do. I wasn’t surprised that you _can_ make a joke, more that you’d do it to _me_.”

Bucky doesn’t reply. All there is is the faintest sounds of metallic groaning as the ship shifts in her moorings, the faintest lap of the waves against her hull. 

“Oh,” Barnes finally says, sounding oddly small, and then he abruptly turns away, marching past the Russian who has been standing some eight feet away, looking awkward. 

“Friend,” the Russian says, and gestures for Clint to get moving. “Please.”

Clint takes the hint and follows; Bucky is halfway up the narrow stairs, marching relentlessly even though he’s carrying a duffel bag full of bottled water and weapons. Clint’s hoping that they don’t need them, but judging by how the mission is going so far, he wouldn’t bet against it.

They end up in a literal container that’s holding a vintage Mercedes-Benz, held meticulously in place by an entire web of thick straps. Clint gives an appreciative whistle when he sees it, but the Russian makes a stern noise and wags his finger at Clint, obviously telling him off in Russian.

“He says don’t touch the car,” Bucky tells him. “He says a very rich American is offering good tips for the car getting home in one piece. If anything happens to the car, he’ll make you pay for it.”

“Sure he will. Has he seen the state of my bank balance?”

“I’m pretty sure he’ll still make you pay for it,” Bucky says. Clint wants to make a comment about Bucky’s friend probably being part of the Russian mob but he wisely keeps his mouth shut. Bucky seems oddly defensive about his friends right now, though considering his best one is MIA, Clint guesses he can understand. 

Bucky’s Russian friend brings them two bedrolls and two sleeping bags that look like they’ve seen better days, and a box full of food. Bucky thanks the guy in Russian and presses a hundred dollar bill at him, which he tries to refuse. Bucky says something insistent and apparently meaningful because the guy relents and takes the money, departing with a sloppy American salute before pushing the doors of the container closed.

“Did he just lock us in?” Clint asks, already poking through the box of rations. 

“No, they’re not locked, but we can’t just be wandering around as we feel like. Sergei’ll let us know when it’s safe to come out.”

“Have you done this before?” 

“A few times,” Bucky says and then pauses. “The Red Room...before they sold me to Hydra. They used to ship me all around the world for missions.”

“They sent their best assassin around the world in a shipping crate?”

“Well, I was in cryofreeze chamber, so it’s not like I’d know,” Bucky says, and then changes the subject. “We’ve got about an hour before the ship departs. Then six days of sailing.”

“Six days,” Clint repeats. “Six days locked in a metal box together, with only stale rations and a bag full of weapons.”

“Not ideal, but we’ll survive,” Barnes says and pauses. Clint waits him out, and sure enough he speaks again. “I know...Steve is important to you too. I know you’ll do all you can to help me get him back.”

“Well, yeah,” Clint says and it’s not enough but it seems to be for Bucky. He nods curtly and then preoccupies himself with straightening out his bedroll and checking through his duffel-bag armoury. Well, if it’s enough for Bucky, then it’s enough for Clint, who goes back to checking out all the food and trying not to think about Bucky being frozen in a cabinet and shipped over the world, probably shown less care and consideration than a vintage car.

 

* * *

 

The journey goes without a hitch until around twenty hours in, when the boat hits some mild swells and Bucky hits a level of seasick that Clint didn't think existed outside of episodes of Tom and Jerry. Bucky throws up into the emergency-toilet-bucket more times than Clint thought a person could throw up without turning themselves inside-out. It’s not pleasant, being stuck in an enclosed space with a man who a) hates him and b) seems determined to set the land-speed record for hurling, but Clint can concede that this isn’t Bucky’s fault. Bucky would probably rather remove his arm than show weakness in front of Clint, and he certainly looks pretty weak right now, pale and sweating and breathing like he’s just run a marathon in full combat gear.

And Clint’s not a monster, and he knows what he’d do if any of the other Avengers were in this situation. Slightly wary, lest his helping gets misconstrued as pity or something patronising, he edges over to where Bucky is sitting with his back against the wall, eyes closed and throat working convulsively. 

“Here,” Clint says, holding out a bottle of water. Barnes takes it with what Clint thinks is a grateful nod, cracking the top off and downing half of it in several gulps. “So, is it all transport that makes you sick?”

“Only boats when there’s rough seas or planes when there’s a maniac flying,” Barnes says.

“So, okay, you’re welcome,” Clint says, and settles in to sit next to Barnes, leaning back against the side of the crate with his shoulder pressed to Bucky’s. He glances over to Bucky and is ready to rib him some more about his inability to handle waves but the words die in his throat. Bucky has his metal hand over his face covering his eyes and his jaw is clenched tight.

“You okay?”

Bucky nods, hand still over his eyes. “Steve used to jab me all the time about getting car sick,” he says. “Back in Normandy. He’s a worse driver than you.”

“Where do you think I learned it?” Clint says and Bucky snorts out a noise that is either derisive scorn or a laugh. 

“Steve’s the only one who knows-” Bucky begins, but breaks off before he finishes his sentence. 

Clint rolls his eyes. So Bucky’s back on his ‘Steve and Bucky are friends in a way you can’t even understand,’ kick. It’s all a bit teenage girl for Clint’s tastes; it’s like saying the bond between him and Nat is incomparable. He knows he and Nat have a bond but he’s not deluded enough to think it’s so special that no-one else has it. Hell, the fact that Barnes has something comparable is what makes Clint hate him, most days. “Knows…?”

Bucky doesn’t answer and Clint assumes that he’s just ignoring Clint like he usually does, but then after a silence of at least a minute he finally says, “What the war was like.” Bucky finally lowers his hand. He looks exhausted. “It’s not like running missions for SHIELD, or the Avengers. It’s...huge.”

Clint wants to say _'that’s what she said,_ ' so much that he thinks he might die, but the conversation has just leapt sideways into subject matter that even Clint can’t find it in himself to be disrespectful about. 

“It’s so relentless and you forget how to see the big picture,” Bucky says. He’s talking so quietly, it’s almost like Clint’s not even there. “You get stuck in a fucking foxhole and all you’ve got is a sniper rifle and three rounds and you just don’t want anything to happen to the morons stuck in there with you. Fuck everything else. You forget why you’re supposed to be doing it.”

His tips his head back. “And when you see some of the things that human beings can do to each other.” His gaze goes hard, eyes meeting Clint’s with an obvious challenge. “You ever seen a concentration camp, Barton?”

And suddenly there’s nothing funny about any of this at all. “No,” Clint says quietly. “I haven’t.”

“I was fucked up before I was the Winter Soldier,” Bucky says. “Steve knows that. He saw it all too.”

“I,” Clint begins, but gives up when he finds he doesn’t know what to say. It’s such a fragile moment between them and Clint’s all too aware of his easily it could break. Why he’s not interested in smashing it to pieces is as inexplicable as why Bucky instigated it in the first place. 

“Okay. I get it. Well I don’t, because like you said...I wasn’t there. But I'm starting to get why you and Steve need each other.”

Bucky nods slowly. “If anything has happened to him, I’m going to kill everyone who so much as knew about it.”

Clint nods. “I’ll be right behind you,” he says and they fall into silence, still sitting shoulder to shoulder in the darkness.

 

* * *

 

Luckily the sea calms itself down within a few hours. Sergei lets them out for a toilet break and to stretch their legs, and gives them a pack of playing cards decorated with a bunch of rather busty ladies who Clint assumes are porn stars. Bucky takes the deck like it’s a live grenade, shooting sceptical looks between Clint and Sergei’s none-the-wiser smiling face.

“I am not playing snap against you,” Clint says flatly and Bucky’s mouth twitches.

“You know casino?”

“Do I know casino? Of course I know casino. What sort of special operations agent would I be if I didn’t know time-killing card games?”

Bucky nods, still staring at the pack of cards. Either he’s hitting a 404 error about the naked ladies or the idea of doing something remotely friendly with Clint.

Clint takes pity on him. “You wanna play?”

Bucky nods. “Okay,” he says, and sits down beside the Mercedes-Benz, pulling the card out of their battered packet. “You want to shuffle?”

“It’s all yours,” Clint says, and sits down opposite him. “Hey, what would Nat say if she could see us now?”

Bucky starts shuffling the cards, both hands equally deft. “She’s been telling me to get to know you for months,” he says.

“You’ve been an asshole for months!”

“Well, you didn’t make it easy,” Bucky says. 

“No,” Clint admits. “Guess I didn’t.”

They fall quiet, the only sound the soft swish and click of the cards as Bucky shuffles them. Clint’s a little mesmerised by the metal fingers, watching how the plates shift, the dark spaces between the dull vibranium. He watches until Bucky’s fingers go still, and then when nothing else happens he blinks himself back into the moment, looking up at Bucky’s face.

Bucky looks back. “What do you think Steve would say if he could see us now?”

And Clint can’t help but grin. “He’d either say something profound about the spirit of teamwork and the Avengers being family...or he’d say ‘about fuckin’ time.’”

“Yeah he would,” Bucky says quietly as he starts to deal the cards, and his smile is small and sad, but it’s a smile in Clint’s presence nonetheless, so it’s gotta count for something.

  


* * *

 

They manage four whole days in some sort of mutually-assured-survival mode, navigating around each other in a weird forced tolerance. They sleep in shifts which helps, seeing as they only have to actually deal with each other for eight hours a day instead of more. 

There are even two entire moments when things are… okay. When Clint forgets he's on mission with someone he hates and it feels more like just being on mission. Namely when Bucky trades him a peanut-butter flavored protein bar for the gross coconut one he ended up with, and when Clint realises with utter delight that they haven't yet played _'Buckeye casino, it's made for us, Barnes, we have to play it!'_. Bucky stares at him for a solid ten seconds before throwing all the naked lady cards in his face, saying _'how about Hawkeye 52 card pickup'_ which is a terrible joke but still. It's a joke and it counts. 

However by day four, they’ve run out of card games to play, Clint’s phone is on 6% battery so he’s on a self-imposed Tetris ban, and the sea is just rocky enough to make Bucky feel nauseous and irritable as all fuck. Clint knows they’re getting ratty with each other but by this point he’s honestly spoiling for a fight. He's got no way of blowing off steam: he can't go shooting, he can't go out and get a beer, can't even go out and get laid. Or y'know, get shot down trying.

And so when Bucky asks to send a message off of Clint's phone, he tells him no, but in a way that is possibly considered impolite. Bucky rears back like Clint has swung for him, clearly shocked. 

"I'm on six percent battery, use your own."

"I can't, Sergei has taken it to charge it and I need to message Nat."

"Jesus, you’re like a broken record. When are you going to fucking get over it? You two were a couple like thirty years ago, it's over."

Bucky's face clouds over like a thunderstorm. "This is about the mission."

"Sure. Then why aren't you checking in with Sharon?" 

"Because she doesn't fucking like me, okay?" Bucky snaps. "She tolerates me for Steve's sake."

And Clint kind of thinks that's not true but whatever, it's not his job to soothe Barnes' bruised ego and low self-esteem. "If it's about the _mission_ it shouldn't matter." 

Bucky steps closer. "Give me the phone."

"Fuck off."

"Give me the phone!" 

Barnes grabs him by the front of his shirt, yanking him close, but almost immediately stops. His head snaps to the side, hair whipping Clint in the face. _Ugh,_  Clint thinks, screwing up his face in distaste. _Gross_. 

"You hear that?" Bucky lets go of Clint, distracted enough to abandon the argument. 

"Of course I can't hear it," Clint says, pulling his collar straight. "What is it?" 

"Banging. Tapping. I think it's coming from the next container over."

“What, like the crew moving shit around or something else?”

“Something else,” Bucky says, and they both immediately start collecting their weapons. Clint straps his quiver on and grabs his bow. Bucky comes out of the duffel bag with a Glock complete with silencer in one hand, and a mean looking Bowie knife in the other. He signals to Clint who nods and edges forwards to unbolt the container.

They step out into the night, rain drizzling down and making all the metal containers shine in the moonlight. There’s a few lights on the ship, punctuating the darkness at intervals, but not enough to properly illuminate their way. Bucky signals to him and Clint steals after him, ignoring the way his skin and shirt are already getting wet with rain. They edge up to the crate that’s pressed to theirs and Bucky leans in, pressing his ear to it.

“There’s people in there,” he mouths to Clint. 

Clint frowns, fingers pulling restlessly at his bowstring. “Should we get Sergei?”

Bucky hesitates and Clint understands that even though he and Natasha billed Sergei as a friend, there’s still not trust there. There rarely is, for people like Bucky and Nat.

“Open it,” he says.

Bucky gives the container a wary look. “How about you open it?”

“No, I’m the long range expert,” Clint says, taking a step back. “You open it.”

“We’re both long rage experts,” Bucky points out.

“Yeah but I’m the better long range expert.”

“What, you saying your hand to hand isn’t good enough to handle whatever comes out of here?”

“It’s probably a bunch of scared asylum seekers or something,” Clint says. “Or a bear. If it’s a bear, you can fight it.”

“You’re impossible,” Bucky says, but he’s stowing the knife in a sheath on his thigh and stepping forward to examine the container. He grabs the bar and twists and the doors clunk open, clearly unlocked.

Bucky shoves the door open and springs back, and Clint whips around with his bow raised, ready to shoot if needs be-

“What the hell?” Bucky asks, flummoxed. Clint lowers his bow because the container isn’t full of wild animals, but around twelve young girls, all hopping down from bunk beds and crowding back into the corner of the container, their scared faces visible in the lamps hung crookedly from the roof. They can’t be older than eight or nine - Clint’s no expert on kids but he knows a) they shouldn’t be kept in shipping containers and b) they should definitely have adult supervision when they’re this little.

“Hey, are you okay?” Clint asks, stunned. “It’s okay, we won’t hurt you.”

The girls are all still backing away. They’re all too skinny, Clint’s sure of it. Fuck, have they just accidentally stumbled on some human trafficking hell? This mission no longer has a failing grade, it’s so FUBAR that it no longer even gets a grade. Though if they have managed to accidentally rescue twelve girls from a human trafficking ring, that’s definitely a silver lining.

“You speak English?” Clint asks, stepping forwards and crouching down when the girls all shift uneasily at his approach. He sets his bow down, holding his hands up to show they’re empty. “It’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you. We’re Avengers, we’re here to help.”

“Barton,” Bucky says cautiously. “This isn’t right.”

“Of course it’s not fucking right,” Clint snaps. “Look at them.”

One of the girls steps forwards, tugging nervously at the end of her ponytail. “Avenger,” she says in heavily accented Russian. 

Clint nods. “Yeah, that’s us! Barnes, ask her if she’s okay.”

“ты в порядке?” Bucky asks and the girls eyes snap to him. She nods and then carries on stepping towards Clint. Behind her, the other girls shift, edging closer, tiptoeing around the ends of the bunks, eyes fixed on Clint.

“Clint, back away,” Bucky says sharply.

“Are you seriously scared of a little girl?” Clint asks, too surprised to be scornful. He holds a hand out and the girl hesitates and then takes it, slipping her tiny hand into his. “See, she’s fine.”

“Clint!”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Clint turns in disbelief to face Bucky, and as he does, he feels two tiny hands clamp down around his wrist, nails digging in. “Wha-” he manages, and as he turns back the girl headbutts him right in the face.

“Fuck!” He falls back as furious screaming erupts from the container, and then they’re on him, three of the girls twisting his arms around, one going for his neck.

There’s the pop and hiss of silenced gunshots and more screams, and Clint manages to shove the kids off of him, grabbing his bow and and wrenching it out of the hands of another. Bucky is suddenly next to him, holding one girl literally by the scruff of her neck. Her feet are pedalling at the air and she’s snatching her hands around to try and grab his wrist. 

“стоп!” Bucky snaps, and the girl stops kicking, just hanging there in the air. The other girls all shrink back into the corner, scowling and baring their teeth. All twelve are accounted for which means Bucky must have gone for warning shots only, not that Clint ever actually thought he’d have shot a bunch of kids. Even the kind that try and murder you, Clint thinks darkly, wiping his bloody nose on the back of his wrist.

Bucky snarls something else in Russian and drops the girl to the floor. She lands like a cat and whips around in a fighting stance, but Bucky simply points his gun right between her eyes. “I have shot plenty of Widows,” he says calmly, and then his tone turns somewhat derisive. “Fully grown ones.” She glares at him, holds her ground for a beat and then ducks her head, backing up into the corner.

“Barton,” Bucky says. “Back away.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Clint says, climbing to his feet and backing swiftly out of the container. Bucky hauls the doors shut and twists the bar back into place, just in time for more screaming and the thumps of twelve tiny bodies trying to claw their way through the metal doors.

“Oh god,” Clint says, staring at the container in horror. “Was that?”

“Yep.”

“Twelve tiny Natashas?!”

“Twelve Widows, yes,” Bucky says. “You’re lucky they’re only small. And not very well trained. If they’d known better they’d have gained your trust then killed you when your guard was down.”

Clint backs away from the container, which is starting to sound less like it’s full of girls and more like it’s full of angry velociraptors. “Can they get out of there? If they get out I might cry.”

Bucky gives him an exasperated look but does step forwards to bend the bar on the doors so it won’t open. “There. _Now_ will you please give me your phone, I think we should message Nat.”

“Seconded,” Clint says, digging his hand in his pocket-

There’s a crack and a ping, a spark of light as a bullet cracks off the corner of the container, right above Clint’s head. “Fuck!” He helps, and ducks away from the direction of the shot. Bucky shoves at his back, pushing him along as they try and get clear.

“Who the hell is trying to kill us now?” Clint asks, pressing his side to the container they’re hiding behind, nocking an arrow.

“I assume someone knows there’s a crate of Widows on board,” Bucky says grimly. “They won’t be happy we’ve found them.”

“You think Sergei knows they’re there?”

“Sergei’s an idiot but he’s not stupid enough to hide us in the container next to the one full of Widows,” Bucky says, and scowls as another bullet cracks overhead. “Really? They obviously don’t know who they’re shooting at.”

Clint laughs, even as he hears faint shouting somewhere further down the boat. Several floodlights clunk on, obviously trying to flush them out. “Clearly not. What do you think our odds are?”

“Eighteen crew,” Bucky says. “Let’s assume all of them are trying to kill us.”

“Eighteen bad guys and twelve murderous girls who may or may not be able to break out of a shipping container,” Clint says. “Piece of cake.”

“If the Widows get involved, don’t hesitate,” Bucky warns him. “They won’t.”

“Non lethal shots,” Clint compromises. “They’re kids. They deserve a second chance.”

Bucky looks at him then, really looks at him like he’s just seen something in Clint that he wasn’t expecting. “Obviously,” he says. “You take port and I’ll take starboard.”

“What?”

“You go left and I’ll go right,” Bucky says. “Don’t get killed or eaten by children,” he says and then he’s gone. 

“You are not funny!” Clint yells and then pushes away from the container. He runs the length of a stack and spots a guy with a freaking AK-12 in hand, so drops him without a second thought. He takes off again, spotting a ladder running up the superstructure that houses the cabins and kitchens and navigation room and whatever the fuck else a cargo ship needs. He's not that fussy about what it contains to be honest, he's more picking it because it's the highest point on the ship, save for the cranes. He heads up without a second thought and gets most of the way up before there’s the clatter of bullets to his left and way too close for comfort. He hauls himself onto the roof and yelps as he comes nose to nose with a burly sailor with a rifle in hand - he instinctively whips his bow around and cracks the guy full across the face, sending him staggering sideways. It’s enough time for Clint to fire off an arrow, taking the guy out for good. He rolls him off the edge of the roof just to be sure, wincing as the body thuds against a satellite dish on the way down to the deck. 

“Two down,” he pants, standing on the edge of the roof and scanning the maze of containers that cover the deck, squinting in the driving rain. Shit, he wishes they had comms; he’s got no idea where Barnes is and he doesn’t want to accidentally shoot him. 

He stays in position, watching and waiting. Soon enough he spots a guy running along the deck with a gun in hand. He grabs an arrow but before he can loose it the guy just crumples, hitting the deck on his face and not getting up again. A pool of blood starts to spread out beneath him, so Clint concludes that Barnes got him good.

The minutes pass and no more guys try and shoot him, and no tiny terrors crawl up the side of the cabin like that girl from the ring. He’s just about had enough of the rain and is considering coming down from his perch to go and find Barnes when his phone rings. It’s Bucky, which mystifies Clint for a moment because he certainly never programmed his number into his phone. 

“Barnes. You alive?”

“Alive and kicking,” Bucky confirms. “How many did get you get?”

“Two,” Clint says. 

“Okay so that’s six hostile agents eliminated, two captured.”

“You took out six bad guys?! You’ve been gone like twenty minutes!"

“I took out four, Sergei and the crew did the rest.”

“Oh wow, so your friends _are_ the good guys. Nice one.”

“Good guys but not smart enough to notice a human trafficking operation aboard their ship," Bucky says dryly. "Come inside. We're on the bridge."

"The what?" 

"The bit where the wheel is, where the captain works."

"Oh yeah, like Star Trek. See you in five."

Clint climbs his way back aboard and finds Bucky with Sergei and a dazed looking man that he assumes is the captain. The guy jumps a mile when Clint comes in, clearly rattled by the night's events.

"I am Captain Vasiliev," he says, pulling himself together. "You must be another stowaway."

"Uh yeah, but the good kind," Clint tries with a hopeful smile. 

"Don't worry, we were just discussing how he's going to let it slide seeing as we're not going to report him to the Avengers as being part of the human trafficking operation," Bucky says easily, then jerks his head towards the door. "You want to come and question one of the bad guys?" 

"It’s not going to be like Natasha questioning, is it?" Clint says, already following. 

"Depends how talkative he is," Bucky shrugs, leading the way to a cabin where a man is tied up and gagged, looking none too pleased. Clint watches as Bucky unties the guy then pins him to the wall of the cabin with several knives through his clothes; his arms and legs end up spread out like he’s a Russian sailor version of the Vitruvian man. When he’s done, Bucky goes to stand next to Clint, folding his arms across his chest.

“Why do you have a crate full of Widows?” he asks, then repeats the question in Russian. The guy glares balefully at him and Bucky sighs. “Barton. A warning shot between his feet,” he says and Clint obliges with a grin.

Bucky repeats the question and the guy spits onto the ground. “Go get the arrow,” Bucky says to Clint. “Then fire it around...six inches higher.”

Clint does as he’s asked, the arrow sinking into the wall between the guy’s shins. He’s remarkably slow on the uptake; it takes three more questions and for the arrow to be landing between his thighs for him to suddenly go pale.

Bucky asks the question again and the guy says, “Nyet,” in a wavering voice. Bucky sighs, nods to Clint. Clint retrieves the arrow, nocks it and is drawing back when they guy cracks. He starts babbling in terrified Russian and Clint pauses. Bucky asks a few clipped questions and the guy nods frantically.

“They’re not Hydra, or Red Room. They're middle men,” he says slowly. “They’re being paid to ship them to the States to be sold at an auction. All the big players will be there. Hydra. AIM. Some private buyers.”

“Well that doesn’t sound good,” Clint says. “Got what you need? Shall I shoot him in the dick anyway?”

“No, leave him there,” Bucky says, clearly rattled. “ _Fuck._ ”

“I thought the Red Room had been stopped? There haven’t been any new Widows since you and Nat took them out, what, six years ago? Seven?"

“Obviously they’re not as stopped as I-” Bucky says and then stops, freezing like he’s just caught scent of prey. "Clint. Didn't you say that the guys who kidnapped you in Berlin were talking about lots?" 

Clint nods. "Yeah, they said they'd add me to lot twelve."

Bucky snaps another question at the guy who answers immediately, still giving Clint and his bow fearful looks. 

“What?” Clint demands. “What did you ask him?”

“I asked if if it were only the Widows being auctioned off,” Bucky says. “He said no. It’s called the Items of Curious Interest auction and it’s for selling anything that might be of interest to people like Hydra, or AIM.”

The penny drops. “Oh shit,” Clint gapes. “They can’t just sell him!”

“They sold me plenty of times before,” Bucky says grimly. “Has your phone got satellite connectivity on it?”

“Course, I left it unattended at the mansion and Stark got his hands on it.” 

“Good,” Bucky says. “Call Nat, tell her we’ve got a crate of Widows to rehabilitate and an auction to hijack.”


End file.
